Charles Grant - The Pet

“Me too. See ya.”

She ran up the walk, up the steps, and he didn’t stop watching, knew what he was doing and didn’t give a damn. Right now Joyce was fussing with her hair, her makeup, and beating herself to death over what Don had seen. It wouldn’t hurt to wait a few minutes, to let her calm down.

“Mr. Boyd?”

He looked. She was standing at the open doorway.

“Mr, Boyd, my father—” And she gestured inside.

What the hell, he decided; a celebratory drink with a rich surgeon wouldn’t hurt. Maybe a check for the campaign kitty if he played his cards right.

He made a show of deliberation before nodding and following her into the house.

Where the door closed silently, where the lights were all out.

“Hey, Chris,” he said, suddenly nervous.

“I was going to say,” she said softly, “that he was out of town, but wouldn’t mind if I offered you something to celebrate the great game. Mother wouldn’t either. She’s in Florida for a vacation.”

They were shadows and half-light, and he reached for the doorknob, looked stupidly at her fingers when they caught his wrist and held it. For a second. For two. One by one lifting to release him, the rustle of the pompons as they dropped to the floor.

“Chris,” he warned, but didn’t reach again.

Dumb, Boyd. Dumb, you stupid asshole.

“I have to change,” she said, and walked slowly up the stairs he hadn’t noticed on his left. She didn’t look back, her hips and legs pulling him as if they were beckoning.

He considered only for a moment what he was doing, what he was getting himself into, then decided with a sharp nod that being a saint hadn’t kept him his wife, hadn’t kept him his son, and wasn’t it about time he took what he wanted, had what he deserved.

So he followed, on his toes, and walked into a dark bedroom where he saw her on the mattress. In dimlight, naked, her hands slipping across her breasts, across her stomach, spreading to either side and kneading the sheet.

He stood at the foot of the bed. He unbuttoned his shirt.

He almost stopped when he saw her smile and thought it was a sneer.

“Celebrate,” she said.

He nodded, undressed, and crawled over her legs, held himself above her and looked into her eyes. In the dark they were dark, showing nothing at all; and the smile was still there, the upper lip curled.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said in a whisper.

She nodded and shifted to bring his gaze to her breasts.

“It won’t work.”

“Sure,” she said, and grabbed for his shoulders.

He resisted just long enough to show her he meant it, to show her who was boss, then lowered himself while she guided him, and heard himself gasp. Felt himself thrust. Looked up at her face and saw her staring at the ceiling.

Falcone pushed in and closed the door, took Joyce by the shoulders and practically dragged her into the dark living room. “He found out, didn’t he? The sonofabitch knows what’s going on, doesn’t he?”

” Of course he does.”

“Jesus Christ!” he said, dropping his hands and turning to the bay window. “Joyce, what the hell were you thinking of?”

“Me? All I wanted was someone to talk to. You were the one who couldn’t keep his hands to himself.”

“I didn’t notice you screaming rape,” he said quietly.

Streetlight reached weakly into the room, building shadows out of furniture, adding pits and slopes to his profile.

“But you know what you do to me,” she answered. “You know, and you shouldn’t have.”

“Ah, Christ, don’t give me that, okay? That’s soap opera stuff. You’re a grown woman and—”

She saw his eyelids drop into a squint and she leaned around Norman’s chair to look out onto the lawn. No one could see in without a lamp on, but he might have seen Donald coming up the walk; or worse, it could be Norman.

“What?” she whispered.

He pointed. “You got me crazy, Joyce. I could have sworn I saw some kind of animal out there.”

She laughed. It was going to be all right. Harry was making jokes now; it was going to be all right.

“Look, Harry, this isn’t going to work. I’ve got to get back to Norman, so why don’t you—”

“Damn, there it is again.”

With a smile she shook her head and moved to his side, looked out the window and saw it in the yard.

Under the trees the slope of its back nearly reaching the lower branches. Around it a drifting fog, snaking through the grass and dropping from the leaves, blurring its outline but not the green glow of its eyes.

“It’s a gag,” Harry said. “Plaster or something. A costume. Is this one of your kid’s things?” His voice hardened. “Is that kid out there playing games with us, Joyce?”

“His name is Donald,” she said quietly, and gasped when its head rose and it looked straight at her.

“Jesus,” Harry whispered, his head shaking slightly.

A foreleg pawed the grass, and emerald flame curled into the air, strands of green webbing that poked through the fog and reached for the house.

“I haven’t been drinking,” Falcone said aloud to himself. “I swear to god I haven’t been drinking. What the hell is it, Joyce?”

But she was staring up at the ceiling, toward the back where she knew Don’s room to be, remembering the poster and the horse that had been there.

“It’s a gag,” Harry insisted, “and I don’t think it’s funny.”

She looked out the window, and could see the stallion’s muscles bunch at the shoulders, shift at its haunches, and she barely had time to scream before it leapt from the grass and came through the bay window.

She dove to one side, her leg cracking against the armrest of Norman’s chair, a snowstorm of glass winking over her to the back where it bounced from the wall and fell to the carpet, tinkling like bells in the dead cold of winter. She twisted around as she fell and saw the stallion fill the room, saw Falcone backpedal to the hearth, where he snatched up the poker and brandished it over his head.

The horse looked around and saw her pushing herself into the foyer. It snorted, and the room filled with fog; it lashed out with a rear hoof and Norman’s chair was dashed into the corner, collapsing upon itself as it writhed in greenfire; it turned back to Falcone and he swung the poker at its head, missed, and was drawn offbalance a step off the hearth.

A wedge of glass dropped from the ceiling where it had been stuck like a knife blade.

Joyce drew herself to her feet and sagged against the newel post as the stallion lifted its head, lowered it, and grabbed Harry’s jacket with its bright long teeth. He screamed and tried to hit the beast again, but the horse shook him ragdoll side to side; the smoke-fog thickened, greenfire flared, and as Joyce shrieked and took the stairs, she heard the distinct sound of bones snapping, a spine breaking, Harry’s body released and slammed against the wall.

“Don,” she whispered as she ran to the landing. “Don, save me, please save me.”

When she turned to run into the hall, the stallion was in the foyer, green eyes watching, the fog drifting up ahead of it and sweeping around her ankles, filling her with a chill that made her bones ache, that made her eyes widen, that slowed her when she ran to hide in her room.

On the stairs then — hooves against wood, echoing, hollow.

The pool in the oval was calm despite the wind, though every few minutes a gust would escape from the branches and send ripples across it, bobbing the dead leaves and sending some to the bottom. From the boulevard they could hear the continuing victory parade, but they felt no need to join it. Instead, they huddled together on a damp redwood bench and watched the black water.