THE PET.

CHARLES L. GRANT.

ONE.

A cool night in late September, a Wednesday, and clear- the moon pocked with grey shadows, and a scattering of stars too bright to be masked by the lights scattered below; the chilled breath of a faint wind that gusted now and then, carrying echoes of nightsounds born in the trees, pushing dead leaves in the gutters, rolling acorns in the eaves, snapping hands and faces with a grim promise of winter.

A cool night in late September, a Wednesday, and dark.

... and so the boy, who really wasn't a bad kid but n.o.body really knew that because of all the things he had done, he looked up in the tree ...

And from the Hudson River to a point midway across New Jersey, the land climbed in easy steps toward the Appalachian chain. The forests were gone and so were most of the pastures, replaced by communities that grew in quick time into small towns and small cities, pieces of a jigsaw fit too close together.One piece was Ashford, a piece not the largest, settled on 2.the first of those low curving plateaus, its drop facing south, low hills at its back. From the air it was indistinguishable from any of its neighbors-just a concentration of lights, glints on the edge of a long ebony razor.

... and he saw the crow sitting on the highest branch in the biggest tree in the world. A big crow. The biggest crow he had ever seen in his life. And the boy knew, he really and truly knew, that the crow was going to be the only friend he had left in the world. So he talked to the crow and he said ...

The park was in the exact center of town, five blocks deep and three long blocks wide, surrounded by a four-foot stone wall with a concrete cap worn down in places by the people who sat there to watch the traffic go by. At the north end was a small playing field with a portable bandstand erected now behind home plate, illuminated by a half-dozen spotlights aimed at it from the sides; and the folding chairs, the lawn chairs, the tartan blankets and light autumn jackets covered the infield, protecting the large audience from the dust of the basepaths and the spiked dying gra.s.s slowly fading to brown.

A student-painted banner fluttered and billowed over the handstand's domed peak, unreadable now that twilight had gone, but everyone knew it proclaimed with some flair the approach of Ashford Day in just over a month. The concert was a free preview of the events scheduled for the week-long celebration-a century-and-a-half and still going strong.

The high school band members sat on their chairs, wore their red uniforms with the black and gold piping, and played as if they were auditioning to lead the Rose Bowl parade. They slipped through "Bolero"

as if they knew what it meant, marched through Sousa as if they'd met him in person, and they put fireworks and rockets, Catherine wheels and Roman candles exploding and spinning into the 3.audience's imagination, into the dark autumn sky, when they bellowed and strutted through the "1812 Overture."

At the rim of the field, back in the bushes where the lights didn't reach, there were a few giggles, a few slaps, more than a few cans of beer popping open.

... do you think it'll be all right?

The parents, all the relatives, the school board, and the mayor applauded as if they'd never heard anything quite so grand in their lives.

The bandmaster beamed, and the band took a bow. There were no encores planned, but the applause continued just the same.

... and the crow said, it'll be just fine as long as you know who your friends really are.

In the middle of the park was an oval pond twenty feet wide, with aconcrete ap.r.o.n that slanted down toward the water. It wasn't very deep; a two-year-old child could wade safely across it, but it reflected enough of the sun, enough of the sky, more than enough of the surrounding foliage to make it seem as if the depths of an ocean were captured below the surface. Around it were redwood benches bolted to the ap.r.o.n's outer rim. Above them were globes of pale white atop six bronze pillars gone green with age and weather. Their light was soft, falling in soft cowls over the quiet cold water, over the benches, over the eleven silent children who were sitting on them now. They didn't listen to the music, though it was audible through the trees; they ignored applause that sounded like gunshots in the distance; instead, they listened to the young man in pressed black denim who crouched at the ap.r.o.n's lip, back to the pond, hands clasped between his knees.

4.His voice was low, rasping, his eyes narrowed as he sought to draw the children deeper into the story.

"And so the boy said, how do I know who my real friends are? Everyone hates me, they think I'm some kind of terrible monster. And the crow, he laughed like a crazy man and said, you'll know them when you see them.

The boy was a little afraid. Am I a monster, he asked after a while, and the crow didn't answer. Are you one of my friends, the little boy asked.

Of course I am, said the crow. In fact, I'm your best friend in the whole wide world."

The children stirred as the applause faded, and they could hear the first of the grown-ups drifting down the central path. The young man frowned briefly. He thought he had planned the story better, to end just as the band did, but he had gotten too carried away, elaborating and posturing to get the kids laughing so they wouldn't be bored. Now he had lost them. He could see it in their eyes, in the shifting on the benches, in the way their heads turned slightly, too polite to ignore him outright though their gazes were drawn to the blacktopped walk that came out of the dark on its way to the south exit.

"Crows don't talk," one ski-capped boy suddenly declared with a know-it-all smile as he slipped off his seat.

"Sure they do," a girl in a puffy jacket argued.

"Oh, yeah? You ever hear one, smarty?"

"Bet you never even saw one, Cheryl," another boy said. "I'll bet you don't even know what they look like."

The girl turned, hands outstretched. "Donald, I do so know what one looks like."

The others were lost now, noisily lining up as if choosing sides for a game. The crow's supporters were outnumbered, but they made up for it with indignant gestures and shrill protests, while the mocking opposition-mostly boys, mostly the older ones-sneered knowingly and laughed and punched each other's arms.

5."Everyone knows what a crow looks like," Don said, in such a harshly quiet way that they all turned to look. "And everyone knows what thebiggest crow in the world looks like, right?"

A few heads instantly nodded. The rest were unconvinced.

Don smiled as evilly as he could, and stood, and pointed to the nearest tree, directly behind them. Most of them looked with him; the others, sensing a trick and not wanting to give him the satisfaction, resisted.

Until the little girl put a hand to her mouth, and gasped.

"That's right." He kept pointing. "See? Right there, just out of the light? Look real hard now. Real hard and you won't miss it. You can see his feathers kind of all black and shiny. And his beak, right there by that leaf, it's sort of gold and pointed like a dagger, right?"

The little girl nodded slowly. No one else moved.

"And his eyes! Look at them, they're red. If you look real hard-but don't say anything or you'll scare him away-you can see one just over there. See it? That little bit of red up in the air? It looks like blood, doesn't it. Like a raindrop of blood hanging up there in the air."

They stared.

They backed away.

It was quiet in the park now, except for the leaves.

"Aw, you're fulla c.r.a.p," the ski-capped boy said, and walked off in a hurry, just in time to greet his parents strolling down from the concert. He laughed and hugged them tightly, and Don without moving seemed to stand to one side while the children broke apart and the oval filled with voices, with feet, with faces he knew that thanked him for watching the little ones who would have been bored stiff listening to the music, and it was certainly cheaper than hiring a sitter.

He slipped his hands into his jeans pockets and rolled his shoulder under the black denim jacket and grey sweatshirt.

6.His light brown hair fell in strands over his forehead, curled back of his ears, curled up at the nape. He was slender, not tall, his face almost but not quite touched by a line here and there that made him appear somewhat older than he was.

Within moments the parents and their children were gone.

"Hey, Boyd, playing Story Hour again?"

He looked across the pond and grinned self-consciously. Three boys walked around the pond toward him, grinned back, and roughed him a bit when they joined him, then pushed him in their midst and herded him laughing toward the bike stand just inside the south gate.

"You should've been there, Donny," Fleet Robinson told him, leaning close with a freckled hand on Don's arm. "Chris Snowden was there." He rolled his eyes heavenward as the other boys whistled. "G.o.d, how she can see that keyboard with those gazongas is a miracle.""Hey, you'd better not say stuff like that in front of Donny the Duck,"

said Brian Pratt solemnly. Then he winked broadly, and not kindly. "You know he doesn't believe in that kind of talk. It's s.e.xist, don't you guys know that? It's demeaning to the broads who jerk him off on the porch."

"Drop dead, Brian," Don said quietly.

Pratt ignored him. With a sharp slap to Robinson's side he jumped ahead of the others and walked arrogantly backward, his cut-off T-shirt and soccer shorts both an electric red and defiant of the night's early autumn chill. "But if you want to talk about gazongas, you crude b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, if you're really gonna get down in the gutter, then let me tell you about Trace tonight. Christ! I mean, you want to talk excellent development? Jesus, I could smother, you know what I mean? And she was waiting for it, just waiting for it, y'know? I mean, you could see it in her eyes! Christ, she was f.u.c.king asking for it right there on the stage! Oh, my G.o.d, I wish to h.e.l.l her old man wasn't there, he should've been on duty or 7.something. Soon as she put down that stupid flute I'd've planked her so d.a.m.ned fast ... oh G.o.d, I think I'm dying!"

Robinson's hand tightened when he felt the muscle beneath it tense.

"Don't listen to him, Don. In the first place, Tracey hasn't talked to him since the first day of kindergarten except to tell him to get the h.e.l.l out of her way, and in the second place, he don't know nothing he don't see in a magazine."

"Magazine, s.h.i.t," scoffed Jeff Lichter. "The man can't even read, for G.o.d's sake."

"Read?" Pratt said, wide-eyed. "What the h.e.l.l's that?"

"Reading," explained Tar Boston, "is what you do when you open a book."

He paused and put his hands on his hips. "You remember books, Brian.

They're those things you got growing mold on in your locker."

Pratt sneered and lifted his middle finger. Robinson and Boston, both heavy set and both wearing football jackets over light sweaters, took off after him, hollering, windmilling their arms as though they were plummeting down a hill.

Ahead was the south gate, and beyond it the lights of Parkside Boulevard.

Jeff stayed behind. He was the shortest of the group, and the only one wearing gla.s.ses, his brown hair reaching almost to his shoulders. "Nice guys."

Don shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

They walked from dark to light to dark again as the lampposts marked the edge of the pathway. Jeffs tapped heels smacked on the pavement; Don's sneakers sounded solid, as if they were made of hard rubber.

"How'd you get stuck with that?" Lichter asked with a jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.

"What, the story stuff?""Yeah."

"I didn't get stuck with it. Mrs. Kla.s.s asked me if I'd watch Cheryl for a while. Said she'd give me a couple of 8.bucks to keep her out of her hair. Next thing I knew I had a gang."

"Yeah, story of your life, I think."

Don looked but saw nothing on his friend's face to indicate sarcasm, or pity.

"She pay you?"

"I'll get it tomorrow, at school."

"Like I said-story of your life."

At the bike stand they paused, staring through the high stone pillars to the empty street beyond. Pratt and the others were gone, and there was little traffic left to break the park's silence.

"That creep got away with another one, you know," Jeff said then, looking nervously back over his shoulder at the trees. "The Howler, I mean."

"I heard." He didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want to talk about some nut over in New York who went around tearing up kids with his bare hands and howling like a wolf when he was done. Five or six by now, he thought; once a month since last spring, and now it was five or six dead. And the worst part was, n.o.body even knew what he looked like. He could be an old man, or a woman who hates kids, or ... or even a kid.

"Well, if he comes here," Lichter said, glaring menacingly at the shadows, his hair wind-fanned over his eyes, "I'll kick his b.a.l.l.s right up to his teeth. Or get Tracey's old man to arrest him for unlawful mutilation."

Don laughed. "What? You mean there's such a thing as lawful mutilation?"

"Sure. Ain't you never seen the dumb clothes Chris wears? Like she was a nun sometimes? That's mutilation, brother, and she ought to be arrested for it."

They laughed quietly, shaking their heads, sharing the common belief that Chris Snowden's figure was more explosive than dynamite, more powerful than a speeding bullet, 9.more likely to cause heart attacks in every senior cla.s.s male than failing to make graduation.

Lichter took off his gla.s.ses and polished them on his jacket. "I'll tell you, she's enough to make me wish I was a virgin again."

This time Don's laugh was strained, but he nodded just the same. He wasn't a prude; he didn't mind talk about s.e.x and women, but he wishedthe other guys would quit their d.a.m.ned bragging, or their lying. If they kept it up, one of these days he was going to slip and get found out.

"So, you start studying for the bio test next week?" Lichter asked, his sly tone indicating he already knew the answer.

"Yeah, a little," he admitted with an embarra.s.sed grin. "Should be a snap."

"Right. A snap. And if it isn't, you and I will be standing outside when graduation comes around," He sighed loudly and looked up at the stars.

"Oh, G.o.d, only eight more months and the torture is over."

The wind kicked up dust and made them turn their heads away.

"School," Jeff said then, with a slap to his arm.

"Yeah. School."

Lichter nodded, left waving at a slow trot, veering sharply right and vanishing. Don knelt to work the combination of the lock he had placed on the tire chain, then straddled the seat and gripped the arched handlebars. They were upright, cranked out of their racing position less than ten minutes after he had brought it home from the store. He didn't like hunching over, feeling somehow out of control and forever toppling unless he could straighten his back. He pushed off, then stopped as soon as he was on the sidewalk. To the right, far down the street, were the hazed neon lights of Ashford's long shopping district; directly opposite was the narrow island of trees and gra.s.s that separated the wide boulevard into its east 10.and west lanes; to the left the street poked into a large residential area whose houses began as clean brick and tidy clapboard and eventually deteriorated into rundown brownstone and aluminum siding that had long since faded past its guarantee.

He glanced behind him and smiled suddenly.

On the path, just this side of the last lamppost, was a feather. A crow's feather twice as long as a grown man's hand. It shimmered almost blue, was caught by the wind, and tumbled toward him.

He waited until it fluttered to a stop against the bike's rear tire, then shook his head slowly. Boy, he thought, where were you when that kid opened his big mouth?

But as Jeff would say-the story of his life. Honest to G.o.d giant crows were not in his stars.

Tanker Falwick swore impotently under his breath. Thorns in the red-leafed bush had snagged his coat sleeve and held it fast, and he couldn't move quickly without making a h.e.l.l of a racket. He slapped at them angrily while he rose and peered over the wall. And groaned with a punch to his leg when he saw his last chance for decent prey getting away. The boy was turning, b.u.mping his ten-speed down off the curb and across the street. Away from the park, in spite-of the moon.

It was too late. G.o.dd.a.m.n, it was too late."s.h.i.t!" he said aloud, and yanked his arm until the thorns came loose.

"f.u.c.king s.h.i.t!"

A glance up at the moon riding over the trees, and he swore again, silently, hoping that the squirrel he'd killed earlier wouldn't be the only meal he'd have tonight. There hadn't been much meat and its heart had been too small, and twisting off its head didn't give him near the same satisfaction as tearing out a kid's throat.

Several automobiles sped past, a half-empty bus, a pickup with three punks huddled and singing in the bed, a dozen 11.more cars. None of them stopped, and when he headed back into the trees, he couldn't hear a thing, except his paperstuffed shoes scuffling wearily through the leaves. He hushed himself a couple of times before finally giving up. He wasn't listening, and there was, most likely, no one else around to hear.

The whole place had just been filled with d.a.m.ned kids, just filled to the rafters with them, and every opportunity he'd had to introduce himself to one had been thwarted in one way or another.

A large dirt-smeared hand wiped harshly over his mouth, not feeling the stiff greying bristles on his chin, on his sallow cheeks, on the slope of his wattled neck. He sniffed, and coughed, and spat into the dark.