Abandoned (11 page)

They know
they’re trapped
, thought Lauren.
I’ve got to tame them without scaring them anymore. If only
I had something to feed them.
She looked around the cellar.
Canned goods. Glass home-canned jars lined one of the shelves.

Moving slow so she wouldn’t frighten the
kittens, Lauren walked to the jars. Most of them were fruit and
pickles. But two of the jars were filled with something brown.
Lauren took one of the jars off the shelf and rubbed the dirty
glass.
This looks like meat.
She rubbed the top of the jar in case anything was written there.
The words, “Moose Meat” appeared as she wiped away the grime.

Gross.
But the kittens won’t mind. It’ll be a feast to them.
Lauren
tried to unscrew the lid, but it wouldn’t budge. She put the jar
between her knees and squeezed, then gripped the lid with both
hands and tried to turn it. That didn’t work either.

“Don’t worry, kitties,” she said looking
up at the kittens. Curiosity was getting the best of their fear.
Spunky was inching toward her, Tiger right behind him. Lauren
gently banged the edge of the lid against the wooden shelf, then
tried to turn it again. When it didn’t open, she banged it again, a
little harder.

This time the jar lid turned. Lauren
pulled off the outer ring and pried off the sealed lid. She was
glad to hear a faint sucking noise when she loosened the lid. That
meant the jar was still airtight and the meat was safe to eat. “The
last thing I want to do is poison you guys,” she said as she sat
down, the open jar beside her. She dipped her fingers into the
juice floating around the chunks of meat and held her hand out to
the kittens. They didn’t hesitate. Both Spunky and Tiger rushed
forward and their tiny pink tongues licked up the juice within a
second.

“Just a minute, guys,” said Lauren. She
pulled a chunk of moose meat out of the jar and broke it in two,
then laid it on the floor in front of her crossed legs. The kittens
started to gulp down the food, growling at each other and her as
they ate. Lauren gave them another piece and they ate more slowly.
The growling faded away.

After their third piece each, Lauren
reached out with her hand again. Spunky started to lick her fingers
even though he still had meat in front of him. Then he started to
purr. Tiger joined right in, his purr seeming far too large for his
tiny body. Lauren stroked the kitten’s knobby backs and soon they
were in her lap, Tiger curled into a rumbling ball as Spunky washed
his face with his paw.

“Time to go home,” said Lauren. Gently
she scooped them into her arms and stood. The kittens didn’t even
struggle. “Poor babies,” she murmured. “You’re just glad to have
someone take care of you, aren’t you? What happened to your
mother?” Careful not to jostle them too much, she climbed the
stairs. “Now I just need something to put you in so I can take you
home. I wonder if there’s something in the house I can use. Or the
barn.” She wrinkled her nose. She really didn’t want to go back
into the barn.

But there
is something I can use there
, she remembered.
That leather feedbag hanging outside the dead
horse’s stall.

Lauren’s forehead beaded with sweat. She
would have to go back into the barn.

When she stepped outside the house, she
was surprised it was even warmer than inside the house. And
everything seemed more still than before. She stepped off the
porch, the kittens in her arms, and looked up at the sky.

“Oh my.” It sounded like something Aunt
April would say. Lauren didn’t think she’d ever said “oh my” in her
life. But she didn’t know what else to say. Ominous clouds swirled
in the sky.

No wonder
it's dark so early,
she thought.
But that doesn’t explain why it’s so hot. Why it’s so
still. There’s not a breath of movement. No breeze. No
nothing.

The kittens wiggled in her arms and
Spunky tried to jump down, his cute little face worried. And Lauren
understood. It was the calm, the unnatural calm that happens before
the worst storms. And this promised to be one giant of a storm.

“It’s okay, Spunky,” she said and
hurried past Trooper toward the barn. “We’ll be on our way soon,
Troops. I’ve just got to get that bag, then we’ll go.”

She was halfway across the yard when the
wind hit them. Lauren clutched the kittens to her chest, but she
was too late. Like small slippery eels, they slid from her fingers
and leaped toward the barn. Lauren was right behind them. She was
just steps from the building when the skies opened and water poured
out. She was soaked before she could slip in through the barn door.
She glanced back to see Trooper through the downpour, his back
hunched against the rain, his ears pinned back.

“Hang on, Trooper!” she called. “I’ll be
right back!” Thunder boomed around them, swallowing Lauren’s words.
The wind moaned against the barn and pummelled the blackened boards
with rumbling waves of rain. Lauren could hardly see Trooper
through the curtain of water that streamed from the roof. She ran
to the stall and grabbed the feedbag, then looked around for the
kittens. The barn was cast in shadow, the kittens nowhere to be
seen.

“Kitties?”

A tiny mew. Lauren spun around to see
Tiger walking out of the empty stall, his tail in the air. She
hurried forward and bent to pick him up. And then the barn door
slammed shut.

Absolute total darkness.

Lauren screamed and jumped back, the
kitten forgotten.

Keep calm, keep calm! Don’t be a
wimp!

Her breath came shallow and quick as her
eyes shifted in the dark, trying to see anything. Anything at
all.

Sudden unbidden images of the animal’s
bones shot into her mind. They were shifting in their dirty straw.
Coming together. Rebuilding themselves into the creatures they had
once been. They would be coming for her! She had to run. Hide. She
had to get away!

There’s
nowhere to run
, the reasonable part of her mind interjected.
No one to hear me scream. Be
sensible! Don’t panic!

But it was too late. She stumbled in the
direction of the door, her outstretched hands desperately reaching
for the rough wood. There was a faint glimmer of light to her left
and she inched toward it. It was the crack between the two
doors.

Lauren pushed the door. Nothing! She
threw her entire weight against it, not caring if it sprung open
and she fell into the pounding rain. She had to escape! The door
rattled and gave an inch or two, then bounced back. She could
imagine the bony horse standing behind her, reaching out to touch
her.

Don’t be
stupid, don’t be stupid,
she repeated to herself over and
over, and threw herself against the door again.
Why isn’t it opening? Why can’t I get out?

In a moment of rational thought, she
wondered if she had the right spot, if she was actually pushing on
the door or if she was to the side of it. She reached out along the
wood, terrified she was going to touch bone. The hinges were there.
It had to be the door. But why wouldn’t it open?

The answer came in a flash. The bar had
fallen across the door. On the outside.

As she stood there, logical awareness of
her situation trickled into her mind. Night was coming on. No one
knew where she was. Trooper was tied with a triple knot he could
never undo and couldn’t go for help. And she was trapped.

No, not
just trapped
, revised Lauren.
I’m trapped in a decaying barn full of dead animals. I’ve
got to get out of here. Before I go insane!

Something touched Lauren’s leg.
She leaped into the air without thinking. When she came down, her
ankle turned and she sprawled across the hard wooden floor.
Desperately, she crawled away from whatever had touched her. She
could hear something scratching the barn floor as it scrambled the
opposite direction and then Tiger’s worried mew as he greeted
Spunky.

Lauren had never been so happy to hear a
cat meow, to hear any other living creature. Breathing heavily, she
climbed to her feet. “Sorry guys,” she said, her voice trembling.
“I didn’t know it was you. You can come see me now. Are you scared?
I am.”

She put her hand out to find the barn
wall, then slid to the floor. “Come on, kitties,” she called in her
most coaxing voice. A tiny mew halfway across the barn, then a few
seconds later, a damp nose touched her fingers. Lauren reached out
in the dark and pulled the kitten into her lap. She could feel the
second one climb in after his brother. “Sorry to scare you guys. I
should have known better. It never does any good to panic. I’m just
glad you two are forgiving.”

She looked around the barn. Her eyes
were adjusting to the darkness. She could make out the faint
hulking shapes of the farm machinery beside her, the stall doors in
front of her. And most important, no skeletons. A shiver jagged
down her back. “I’ve got to get out of here before it gets dark,”
she whispered, more to herself than to the kittens. The rain
thundering on the roof drowned out her words. “I’ve got to get back
to Aunt April’s.”

Carefully, she lifted the kittens, one
after the other, from her lap. “Now stay put, you two,” she said,
though she knew they wouldn’t understand. “I don’t want to step on
you. Or have you scare me again.” With a sudden thought, she pulled
off her light jacket. She put in on the floor, then feeling for the
kittens in the dark, she put them on the jacket. She petted them
until they settled down again. “If anything touches me while I
explore, I want to be sure it’s something to be scared of,” she
joked. When Spunky mewed, she smiled into the darkness. “I know.
I’m being dumb. But that’s better than being scared out of my
mind.” She gave them each one last stroke, then straightened.

Okay, now
I need to think. There has to be a way out.
Her mind did a
quick mental inventory. There were the double doors she had come
through and the windows in the chicken coop, and maybe more
possibilities.

Like
windows in the large pen to the left of the double doors,
she thought.
Or maybe the stalls have windows. The bones were
so horrible that I was only looking at them before.
The
thought of stepping over and among the bones in the dark while
searching for an escape route, made her heart pound faster and her
breath quicken.
I’ll try that only
if all the other plans fail,
she decided.

First, she went to the double doors. She
pushed on them again, and though the bar rattled against the doors,
it stayed firmly in place. Lauren could see it through the crack
between the two doors. It wasn’t as dark outside and the rain was
already slowing down. The clouds were moving on, leaving the
rundown house and barn to a normal twilight. She still couldn’t see
Trooper across the yard. It was too dark for that. But when she
called to him, he answered her, his neigh loud enough to be heard
above the pounding rain.

“I’ll be out soon, Troops,” called
Lauren. “Don’t worry. I’ll just be a few minutes, okay?” Trooper
nickered in response and Lauren went back to her investigation. The
crack between the two doors was too narrow to squeeze her fingers
through, and far too narrow for a board or something else that
could push the bar up.

But the
people who lived here must have had some way to open it,
she
reasoned.
There has to be a handle
or rope or something.
In her search, her fingers discovered
a small hole about the size of her thumb, about an arm’s length
above the bar.

That’s
it
, she realized.
They had a
rope going through here with the other end tied to the bar. That’s
what opened it from the inside. But the rope’s rotted away.
She turned in frustration.

“On to the chicken coop,” she said to
the kittens in a falsely cheerful voice as she passed. There was no
response. Lauren hoped they were still sleeping and not wandering
about the barn where she would step on them. She felt along the
line of machinery toward the chicken coop door. The door still hung
open, just as she had left it earlier when she had run from the
coop, horrified to find so many dead chickens.

She crept into the darkness. The
shutters on the first window were still open, allowing the evening
to lend a faint light that spread across the scattered bones.
Lauren picked her way around them the best she could, hating the
crunch that came from beneath her feet whenever she inadvertently
stepped on one. Her skin crawled with revulsion.

Finally she reached the window. She
pulled the shutters all the way back, curled her fingers through
the holes in the wire and tugged. The wire hardly moved. Lauren
jerked backward with all her strength.