SFW's FEATURED FICTION
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TOMCAT
Rob Hunter
Genre:
Fantasy
Format: PDF
Words:
2,500
Price:
$0.99
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SHORT EXCERPT |
Valerie Johasek cursed Vernon Dudley as she struggled with the set of vise grips and a big mechanic's screwdriver. She knew the muskrat trap was off Vern's trap line without checking the tag. The cat had been a twenty-pounder once, but now you could read a magazine right through him. He hadn't been around for a couple of weeks, and Val figured that he had tackled something out of his league: a bullet, traffic on the state road, some upcountry coyote with a taste for feral cats.
The cat watched as the woman worked, his gaze steady and unflinching. There was none of a wild creature's furtiveness, as though a mask had been set aside, displaced by the deeper urgency of survival. Wide and quiet, his great green eyes invited her to share a secret knowledge, intimating she was trusted, but not yet ready for a full revelation. Her species would have to mature.
Their destinies—hers and the cat's—had crossed one more time. A January thaw had freed the trap and he'd dragged it home, chain and all.
To her.
The tomcat was a wild citizen who had gone under her house to heal after a dust-up with something bigger, stray dogs probably. It had taken up with her around Labor Day. It had come crawling out from under the porch when she returned from her job at the mill and given her a tentative once-over. When an animal, a wild animal, singles out a human being for trust there is an exchange of obligations. If she'd come upon him in the woods and hadn't known him from before, she could have killed him in the trap, and gladly, an act of mercy. But here he was, again, and coming to her in his pain.
"Scuse me. I just gotta catch a pee." The rookie opened the door of the cruiser and stepped out into the night. It was cold and wet both, and frost crystals formed along the insides of his nostrils; Dan coughed and pulled his collar up. This was the killer fog that took away infants and the aged.
"Me too," called his partner. "I can hold it till you get back, but shake a leg."
Dan stood relieving himself by the side of the road. He reflected on the long hours and low pay that were a policeman's lot—food in paper sacks, eighteen hour shifts on lonely country roads, the recurring nightmares. The force was shrunken with attrition, the auxiliaries used up. Hence, a recruiting push. Dan was the new guy, sitting out hour fifteen of this particular detail. The flesh beneath his uniform trousers carried a semi-permanent impression from the seams of the cruiser's upholstery. At home and off shift, Dan checked his naked rear end in the mirror. He had looked stitched together. Finished, he slid back into the cruiser. "So why'd you wanna be a cop?" he asked his partner. His preceptor had in twenty years and counting. And still a constable. Promotions were hard to come by.
"The action, the glory, the pay." The senior constable gunned the engine. "Actually, it was the dental plan." Long, curving incisors flashed what might have been a smile. "Lunch break." The cruiser spun toward the nearest oasis, a snarl of pink fluorescents that spelled EAT, a break from the ennui of night patrol. They left the cruiser in the road, engine running, radio on.
"Two, Vondelle, we're double-parked."
"Coming up."Vondelle returned her Number Five Cop Special—the lingering smile that promised much, but not too much.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
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With the onset of late middle age Rob Hunter is the sole support of a 1993 Geo Metro and the despair of his young wife. He does dishes, mows the lawn and keeps their coastal Maine cottage spotless by moving as little as possible. In a former life he was a newspaper copy boy, railroad telegraph operator, recording engineer and film editor. He spent the 60s and 70s as a Top-40 disc jockey. Rob's wife, Bonnie, is the secretary at a nearby rural elementary school.
Author's site:
http://www.onetinleg.com |
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