“Her?”
By RD Rivero
WileyKit could not wait for that year’s
vacation. In the past, when she and her
brother had arrived on New Thundera, the two would spend weeks exploring the
countryside. Lately, though, as they
grew older they learned to live apart and she began to spend more and more time
with Panthro.
Panthro had always been her favorite and
though he tended to act a lot older they were really about the same age. She told no one, not even WileyKit about the
crush she had on the panther, mostly because she was too nervous and too
embarrassed. Indeed, she wondered if he
could ever return the affection, though back on Third Earth he had always been
very kind to her.
That year she and Panthro were going to
spend a whole month roaming though the vast southern continents. She could not believe that she would have so
much time with him nor she did have to
wait long. By July the Thunder Tank was
packed and ready to go.
The first day on the trail was highly
uneventful, it was not until the night after the third day that they actually
left those parts of the planet that were accurately mapped and explored -- many
things had been altered when the planet reformed and it was their
responsibility to see just how much had changed.
In the moonless, darkness they passed the
imaginary line between what was known and what was unexplored. It was especially exciting for WileyKit
because she had no real memories of Thundera.
Panthro, too, seemed to have become something of a kid himself. He let her stay awake most of the night and
walk around the clearing where he parked the vehicle to rest. He kept a wide-eye open, watching out for her
safety, of course.
They first heard it on a lonely stretch of
wasteland near the ocean. The gray,
turbulent waters were to the west. A
large, orange sand plateau loomed far in the east. Much, much closer were small hills and mounds
that dotted the scene.
What began as a slight tapping under the
vehicle grew louder the faster Panthro drove.
It quickly became pounding.
“What, by Jagga’s that?” he asked himself.
“We must've run over something.”
He stopped and stepped out of the Thunder
Tank. There was nothing caught in the
wheels or under treads as far as he could tell.
A cold wind blew hard. He looked up at the sky as dark clouds painted
the horizon.
“There's gonna be a storm,” he said.
The pounding persisted when they were on
the trail again. After a while he could
barely steer. Once again he stopped.
“Something's caught under the wheels, but
that can't be, can't be anything there. I checked.”
Large raindrops hit the windshield. The closest settlement was about forty miles
away, so he was told back at Cat’s Lair -- not that anyone there knew for
sure. The desolate scene had only an old
house near a small hill next to the road.
“Let's make a run-for-it. Someone in that house might be able to help
us.”
So they ran fast to that old house but in
the time they reached the rotting wood of the front steps they were unable to
beat the coming of the storm. The two
were drenched from head to toe but once under the roof of the porch they were
safe from the downpour.
A small mail box read a name long decayed
over time. Next to that was a small
window. Dusty, mildewed curtains
shrouded any view of the interior. There
was no door bell. Panthro knocked.
Thunder and lightning crashed above -- they hoped someone inside could help
them.
WileyKit was glad when a girl about her
age answered the door.
“I'll have someone to talk to if we've to
stay for long,” WileyKit thought to herself.
But there was something wrong with that girl. Her eyes tended to look faraway, toward the
ocean. All the while she talked to
WileyKit and Panthro her gaze was fixed upon some part of the horizon
significant to her alone. A red ribbon
hung from her neck. “Why would anyone
wear such a fancy ribbon with a T-shirt and jeans?” she wondered. The girl, whose name was also Kit, asked them
to enter.
“I live with my father,” she said. “He comes here now.”
Kit's father came down and shook hands
with all his guests. When he offered
them drinks she noticed something wrong with him too. He wore a black bow-tie, the kind a man would
wear to a formal occasion, under his sweatshirt. She could not help but think
how strange it looked.
“Communications are down,” he said when he
returned with mugs of juice. “When the storms are so violent even the
electricity goes out.”
“There's no way to get in contact with the
settlement?”
“No,” his gaze was exactly like his
daughter's. “It’s almost forty miles
away and no more advance than my home is.
We must first wait out the storm, then you and I can go look at your
vehicle.”
The window curtains were spread open to
reveal the gray gloomy weather that clung over the barren scene. The two girls talked under the window while
rain and wind whirled outside. Curiously
enough they realized that they liked many of the same things but especially
Panthro. Both WileyKits found him
‘dreamy.’ She felt lucky she had found
someone so much like herself. Before
long they were giggling and sharing secrets as if they had known each other a
lifetime.
As soon as the storm died the men headed
out to the Thunder Tank. It started up all right. They drove it around for a while and just
like that it was OK. The pounding was
gone. There was scarcely a hint of the
tapping that had begun it all.
WileyKit did not want to leave so
hastily. She promised she would see them
again soon and with that she and Panthro were back in the Thunder Tank, back on
the trip, unscaved. She was more excited
about the new friend she had made than on the adventure. Sometimes she thought about the ribbon and
that faraway look in her eyes but mostly she remembered the good times they had
had together. Then, when a few days and
weeks passed, her attention was again refocused on what mattered.
After a great excursion it was time for
the Thundercats to return home. WileyKit begged Panthro to stop at the old
prairie house when they were traveling through the wastelands again.
“I'd just like to see her one more time,”
she said.
Reluctantly: “Well, I suppose we can,” he
agreed. “We should be coming up past the
house about now.” They became confused,
even disturbed when they drove by that part of the road where the Thunder Tank
had given out. Where the house should
have been there stood a decrepit two-room shack. A small hill loomed behind it.
“I don't understand. I don't remember ever
seeing this.”
“We should stop and ask. Someone inside ought to know where the house
is.”
Again, very reluctantly, Panthro knocked
on the door until someone inside opened it just enough to peer out like a
frightened animal. When the door opened
the rest of the way WileyKit was surprised to see a woman who looked so much
like the girl, so much older. The woman
nervously invited the two in and when she heard what WileyKit wanted to know
she turned white as a ghost.
“On the other side of the hill is the
house you are looking for,” she said, “but you no one will find there. No one lives there and I should know. I was that man's wife.”
“Your daughter, Kit," WileyKit said,
“I met almost a month ago.”
The woman stared at her with that faraway
look.
Panthro jumped in: “There came a pounding
under the Thunder Tank and I had to stop 'cause I was--”
She cut him off mid-sentence: “You couldn't have met my daughter,” she said
in a loud but shaky voice. When she
paused the whole shack was silent. “I
told her not to play on the trail. I
must have told her that a thousand times. ‘Don't play on the road, Kit, don't
play on the road. Don't play on the
road, Kit, don't play on the road. Don't
play on the road, Kit, don't play on the road.”
Her voice trailed into a whisper.
“WileyKit, I think we should go.”
“No!”
the woman shouted. “No! If you have seen my Kit, if you've seen my
husband, we must--”
“Are you all right, ma'am?”
She began to sob and rock back and forth
in her chair.
“Kit wasn't, Kit was not supposed to play
on the trial. I had just come back from
the town that day. An ice storm was
brewing. I didn't, I didn't see her
playing in the grass until it was too late.”
She screamed at the picture that formed in her mind's eye, that only she
could see. “I heard a pounding, a
terrible pounding come from under the vehicle.
Then I saw my husband run toward me, toward me, toward me. He was waving him arms but I couldn't
stop! The car'd hit a patch of ice and
slid uncontrollably. My God, after so
many years, can I ever stop that pounding?
Will it echo in my head as long as I live?” She put her hands over and around her
forehead and gripped hard while she shook violently. Then she looked right at Panthro. He had been inching to the door. “But don't you understand? I killed them, I killed them both. They were caught under the car and I dragged
them while they made that horrible pounding!”
Here she turned and whispered to WileyKit: “Their heads were caught under the wheels, I
chopped their heads off. Their heads
were caught under the wheels, I chopped their heads off. Their heads were caught under the wheels, I
chopped their heads off.” For every word
she spoke she became increasingly agitated until at length she broke in a cold,
hideous laughter.
WileyKit could not believe a word if
it. She screamed as she ran out of the
small shack to the old prairie house. It
was right on the other side of the hill where the woman had said it was. She knew Kit would be there to invite her in
just like before. The woman had to be
crazy, that was it, that was all.
She trembled as she came to the door.
“It can't be true. It just can't be true.”
Hanging on the door knob was a red ribbon
and a black bow-tie, tainted with crisp, dry blood.
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