Day One ∞ Friday morning

IT HAD TO BE A DREAM, these shadows...

These shadows brushing past him, teasing him, refused to be seen face to eye. They danced and swirled, daring him further into the brooding forest. And he followed, compelled to find something—he didn't know what. He just knew he'd know when—or if—he found it.

Trees dwarfed him to the ground, closing in on him. The deeper the elusive shadows beckoned him, the thicker the silence grew—loud and pressing. Yet he continued, persisting onward until he found it.

The column of swirling mist.

It had been waiting for him. Suspended between tree trunks like a cocoon, surreal and larger than human, it solidified before him. It acknowledged his presence with a rumble, shedding one layer of light—and it floated down like a leaf in still autumn, a wisp dispersing before it touched the ground. Then another layer peeled and fell, exposing black and silver strands of hair. The rumbling amplified with the shedding of each layer, more hair flowed, untangling, freezing him to watch. Soon he'd know what he'd been looking for all this time, and why. Soon he'd—

A thunderclap.

Danny jerked in his bed as the cocoon shed the last of its layers, revealing a pale, still face surrounded by hair dancing in the swirling breeze. He caught his breath. It was staring at him with eyes that glistened bottomless black.

Deep and alluring...

His eyes flew open and he found himself staring into a semi-darkness that flickered with distant lightning. Then thunder and instant daylight filled his room, the round wall mirror dazzling the flash back at him.

Groaning, Danny clamped his eyes shut. His forehead felt tight with the weight of sleep still waiting for him. He reached for the pillow on the floor and covered his head with it, trying to block out the intermittent rumbles. For a while, he lay still. But sleep was elusive now, and his sluggish thoughts started to circle an unsettled corner of his mind.

He'd been dreaming something strange. He tried to remember—it had something to do with last night. But last night hadn't been a dream...

He snapped up on his elbows when it hit him. The girl!

A strange girl. And a strange night.

It was just after eight and drizzling when Danny stepped out of the bathroom and paused in front of the guest room door. It was open a crack, and after a moment he decided to knock.

No response.

He stuck his head in as lightning softly illuminated the room through the closed curtains. The girl lay propped up with her head turned away from the door. A breakfast tray sat on the bedside table under the lamp. He entered quietly to check if it was ready to be collected.

It was.

Good, at least she's strong enough to eat. Is she sleeping? As he skirted the bed to check, a soft shadow surrounding her head and neck shifted, echoing his movement. Then the room flickered again, a play of shadow and light.

It looked like she was asleep. A Band-Aid on her cheekbone interrupted her flawless features.

Flawless... He tore his gaze away from her, about to return for the tray when her eyes flew open, startling him. They seemed more intense than they were a few hours ago, like emeralds.

"Hey." He cleared his throat. "Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you." He continued around and picked up the tray, conscious of the girl following his every move with that gaze. He turned toward her. "How are you feeling?"

Her eyes fluttered. "Drained," she said eventually. "But... better, thank you."

"Great, I'm glad to hear that. You really had me worried there last night."

"I... recall not what happened." She met his gaze, a troubled crease between her brows. "How—"

"No, not now. Relax. Get some more rest. There's plenty of time to talk later," he added in a louder voice as the drizzle became a smattering crescendo on the roof.

The girl stared at him for a moment. Then to Danny's surprise, her gaze slipped and lowered until the eyes closed, her face relaxing into sleep.

Watch over her, Daniel.

He remembered the voice inside his head last night. It wasn't an order. It was an appeal. An appeal that managed to bury itself into his core, branding him overnight. He felt it with such intensity that for a moment it tightened his chest.

How was that possible? And where did that voice come from anyway? It could hardly be hers, speaking of herself in third person.

He drew a deep breath and left the room, pensive as he made his way downstairs to the kitchen. Placing the tray on the counter, he looked out the window, half expecting to see cats and dogs tumbling down. The view was gray and distorted with the downpour.

No rain, huh? A total contradiction to that 98 percent proof "sunny and fair for the next 36 to 48 hours" prediction of yesterday. He muttered to himself. The two percent was certainly making itself heard.

"Oh! 'Morning, Dan," Gina said as she passed him.

That's right. Not good at all. His head still felt tight, and the thunder in the air was not helping. "Oh, shoot!" He spun around. "I should be at work already!"

"It's okay. I wasn't expecting you up this early so I called the shop and told them you wouldn't be coming in today."

"You could've woken me!"

"Yeah, I know... I'm sorry. I just thought you'd need more sleep. Besides," Gina hesitated, "I didn't really want to be... alone, you know?" She pointed with her eyes at the ceiling.

"Oh." Still spooked by the girl last night? "Okay, I guess." Frowning, he looked out the window again. "What did you tell them?"

"Just that you were under the weather."

"Ha. Under the weather, huh?" He chuckled. "That's perfect. Our guest finished breakfast," he added, nodding toward the tray. He took the Skippy peanut butter from the cupboard and helped himself to six slices of bread.

"I noticed. I wasn't sure if it was too early, but I thought I'd leave a tray for her in case she woke up." Gina turned to the stove with a plate. "I figured she'd be hungry after all she's been through, whatever it was."

"Good thinking." He sat on the other side of the L counter so he could face his sister. "She only woke up for a moment when I checked on her."

Watch over her, Daniel. It returned as an echo in his mind. He frowned as he spread a thick layer of the creamy paste on a slice of bread.

Gina pushed a plate with tomato slices, two broken sunny-side-up fried eggs and bacon toward him and sat down. "That's a good sign. She's eating. She'll soon recover." She tilted her head as she watched Danny do another sandwich. "I didn't get her name."

"Neither did I. She wasn't up for much conversation."

"Hm. Well, Phil will be here later to check on her."

"Okay." He jabbed the fork into a tomato slice and a fried egg, placed them on one of the peanut-buttered slices, and sandwiched them.

Gina shifted her gaze to the window for a while. "What happened last night?"

"I did leave a message on the answering machine."

"I got that you'd be late with Ray's birthday bash and all. But how did the girl get in the picture?"

Danny paused in the middle of a bite. What could he say? He wasn't even sure of what it was that happened last night. "Erhm... well... I kinda just needed to unwind after dropping Ray home, so I drove for a while. Down to the landing, you know—"

"Hardridge, yeah."

"—and she stumbled out in front of me. Right after the bridge." He picked up the bacon with his fork and nodded—it had just the right crisp.

"That's it?" Gina poured coffee in a cup and reached for the sugar.

"That's it. I couldn't leave her there, and she wouldn't go to the hospital. So I brought her home."

"So you didn't see a weather balloon or something crash in the lake?"

Danny's head snapped up. "Huh?"

She placed the steaming cup in front of him and gave it a stir. "It was on the news this morning."

"Oh." So that's what was causing all the excitement. "No, I didn't. I did see a string of emergency vehicles fly past me on my way home—I didn't know why, though."

"Well, seems like they're having problems retrieving it. They even had the Coast Guard flying in."

"Helicopters?"

Gina nodded and sat down, studying him as he dug his teeth into the peanut-butter-egg-and-tomato sandwich. She sat silent a while, then her brow furrowed as she glanced out the window again. "Danny..."

He looked up at her worried tone.

"I can't find Laddie. I've called and called—he always comes when I call."

The puppy. He'd totally forgotten it should've been inside the kennel enclosure when he checked the dogs last night. But he'd been so preoccupied and tired.

"Lad's missing? Maybe he got his collar caught in some bushes—it's happened before. I don't know how he does it, though. I'll look for him in a bit."

"Please do."

It didn't take Danny long. Soon there were only crumbs left, and as he sipped the hot coffee he was lost in thought, his eyes drawn to the rain.

A weather balloon? That could explain the water disturbance last night. And maybe the light. He wasn't sure about the strange mist, though.

And the girl? It must've been a coincidence that he'd found her in the same area. Or was it... wasn't...

He frowned and massaged his forehead. The lack of sleep was making him feel like his brain was lapsing. But now he had to go find Lad.

He got his boots and an umbrella from the laundry room, headed out the back door and onto the stone porch, looking around. The yellow and red dog bowls beside the door were empty. A chain attached to the corner post of the kennel, next to the porch, lay dogless in a deep puddle on the ground.

He stepped out into the rain and called, "Laddie! Zorro!"

Zorro poked his head out through the external kennel door, looking at him attentively. Danny walked around the kennel compound, inspecting the sides. Right at the far end he found it: a hole under the fence and a mound of dirt on the inside.

"Okay, Zorro. It's your turn." He released the dog. "Come. Let's find Lad."

Whining a little, Zorro flattened his ears and offered Danny a paw. Danny shook it seriously, feeling the rain beating his lower back and buttocks. He muttered as he straightened himself and Zorro wagged his tail in response.

"Yeah. Go find Lad."

Zorro barked, looked nervously around when thunder echoed him, then took off for the backyard, passing the overflowing birds' bath. He stopped to wait for his master, then headed for the large round stone at the edge of the 'tamed' part of the yard.

"Yeah, Zorro, I'm coming!"

The German shepherd mix took several steps into a patch of tall wild grass that was bending heavily with the rain and looked back at Danny, whining. Then it sniffed at something on the ground.

Danny bent beside Zorro, balancing the umbrella between his head and shoulder. As he parted the grass, he saw the familiar brown and white fur pasted to the body that lay there. He swallowed and turned it over, exposing the torn head, bent at an unnatural angle, teeth still bared and eyes fixed at something long gone.

"Oh hell, no," he whispered, his stomach turning over in protest. The jugular was mutilated, left wide open with the collar hanging on by the thread. "What did this to you?"

The cougar story. It's true. No wonder Zorro went crazy last night. And he—being distracted with concern for the girl—hadn't taken him seriously.

Danny stepped back. He couldn't let Gina see this—she couldn't take it. Lad was her dog. He swallowed hard several times, staring at the remains.

It's my fault. He was responsible. If he hadn't been so preoccupied...

He got a shovel from the tool shed, hoping that Gina wouldn't catch him until it was all done. Then he located a good soft spot a couple of feet from the round stone.

"You should've made more noise, Lad—I didn't hear you." He suppressed the frustration and anger as he started digging in the rain. Zorro sat to the side, watching his activity. "So I could've chased it off or something. You thought you'd chase it off all by yourself now, didn't you?"

Zorro made a plaintive sound.

"Yes, I know, I know. You tried telling me, but I was too busy. Look, I'm sorry, Zorro. I'm sorry, Laddie. I'm so sorry. I should've known better. Sis is going to be so upset about this." Danny sighed, wiping hair and water from his face. He was soaked, the umbrella sheltering the ground a few feet away. He could well imagine how the girl must have felt last night. The only difference was that he was getting wetter.

One more shovelful should do it. Then taking a deep breath, he took the small body by the legs and carefully placed it in the hole.

Rest in peace, he thought as his throat tightened. The sight of the exposed jugular with most of the blood washed away made him queasy so he started covering the head first. Soon he had refilled the hole, and he used the back of the shovel to pat down the little mound, wondering how he was supposed to break the news to his sister.

Back on the porch, Danny found an old towel to rub Zorro down with. The dog enjoyed the massage immensely and rolled on its back. He didn't have the heart to put him back in the kennel again so he attached him to the chain where it could stay sheltered on the porch.

But then he hesitated. What if the cougar came back? He squatted next to the dog and scanned the perimeter, looking for an out-of-place shape, a movement between the trees.

"What do you think, Zorro? Will it come back?"

The dog replied with a grunt.

"Probably not during the day? You tell me if something's coming, okay?"

—It is gone.

"Who are you?" he blurted, snapping up his gaze to search the low-hanging clouds as if the internal voice came from up there.

Of course there wouldn't be a reply. He pushed his dripping hair back and massaged his forehead. This was beginning to feel disconcerting. A voice just popping into his head without rhyme or reason... without any apparent source? Like what happened last night?

Zorro barked once and licked his jaw, interrupting his distraction.

"Yeah... yeah, okay. I don't suppose that was you this time, huh?" He patted Zorro and rose, turning to peek inside the door. Maybe he could sneak upstairs to clean up and change before Gina saw him.

He was in luck. He was able to do that and return downstairs without running into her. Settling in the armchair in the study-den, he pulled the basket of old newspapers closer. When was that story about the cougar?

Removing a stack from the top to access last month's issues, he started flipping through the papers until he found the July 5 front-page headline of the Tribune: "Dog Makes 'Cougar' Tracks"[1]. But the article was ambiguous and didn't contain what he was looking for. He was sure he'd read something more than that. Putting the paper aside, he continued searching through the more recent papers, turning the pages.

Eventually he landed on the one-and-a-half week old response to the same article, a letter to the editor with the heading, "Cougar story had some inaccuracies." *

He started reading, "You should be aware of these ... details which place this 'cat story' in a different light: ... Cats can and do walk with claws extended under certain circumstances... a neighbor's dog had the back of its head ripped open... It appeared to weigh over 200 pounds, had no markings on its face or body, ... insistent calls of the mother cat before seeing the cub run in that direction. This was in daylight. ... " [2]

*Wait, daylight? Danny exhaled a long breath, the newspaper sinking to his lap. There was no doubt about it. Now the cougar had wandered further afield and reached his neighborhood. Zorro would have to spend all day and night inside the kennel compound from now on, to be safe. Though he had doubts it would return in this downpour...

He frowned. And he'd have to be more careful when coming home late or even stepping outside the house at night. There was no fence around the yard to keep anything out or in. Hardly anyone used fencing in the area. He massaged the bridge of his nose.

"Danny?"

He hadn't heard Gina come down the stairs. "In the den!" He braced himself mentally.

She stopped in the doorway and leaned against the jamb. "You know, she talks in her sleep."

He gave her a quick glance, then looked down. "Really?"

"Yeah. Although I can't make out what she's saying."

"Nightmares?"

"Something intense." She tilted her head, looking at him, then at the newspapers around him. "What are you looking for? Dan?" She looked back at him. "Did you find Lad?"

Danny sighed with a slow shake of his head and met her gaze. He couldn't hide it anymore.

"What?" Worried, she got the footstool and sat down to face her brother. "Something happened to Lad?"

"I'm sorry. I found him in the weeds in the backyard." He pointed to the article in his lap. "He must've dug himself out of the kennel to chase a cougar. It attacked him."

"Oh – my – God," she said in a small voice, then abruptly stood up. "Why didn't you call me? Where is he, did you bring him inside? He must be hurting so much!" She started toward the door.

"No, Sis." He grabbed her by the arm. "I'm sorry, but... Laddie didn't have a chance."

Gina looked back at him, her eyes widening. "You're not saying... You're saying that Laddie—" She studied her brother, hoping against hope for some sign that it wasn't true. She gasped as he nodded, tears filling her eyes. "Where is he? Take me to him!"

"I've already buried him. In the back, near the round stone. It was," he hesitated before continuing, "ugly. I couldn't – couldn't let you see him like that."

Her brows furrowed as she twisted her arm out of his grip. "That was not your decision!" She stormed out of the study.

"I'm sorry!" Danny called after her.

The drumming rain drowned her reply. He massaged his forehead. He'd done what he had to do, what he could do. Sighing, he gathered the newspapers into the basket, putting the two with the cougar articles on top. Now he just needed some distraction—he didn't like getting depressed. He headed up the stairs.

His steps led him back to the guest room, and after a moment's hesitation, he knocked on the door and pushed his head inside. The girl was sleeping so he stepped quietly inside and headed for the nearest dormer window. He parted the curtain to see the front yard. It looked more like a swamp out there. This was a steady downpour that promised to last at least for the entire day.

He sighed and sat down on the ledge, his gaze drawn to the girl. She was moving fitfully, hands twitching, her face strained.

You can't be getting much rest like that... He approached to squat next to her.

"Leave?" Her head jerked sideways, and she mumbled something more. Danny watched her closely. Her breathing grew erratic, and the movements under her eyelids increased. "—can not – leave – every one. I can not... must not—"

Perhaps he should wake her. Seeing her like this was tugging at him to do something. At least he could try to stop the nightmare.

He pressed a firm hand on her damp forehead and felt her agitation subside, her breathing gradually returning to normal. He held his position for a few minutes, watching her until he was satisfied.

That's better. He gently removed his hand. Get some rest.

Then the realization hit him. I'm watching over her. Just like the voice had asked him to. But he was doing it out of his own accord—because it was right.

No... Because it felt right. 

— ∞ —

A/N: If you'd like to know more about the background setting to this story and how it came about (the location, the cougar), check out my chapter "Author's Note: A little background..." before Chapter 12.

[1] This is an actual article on page 1 of the July 5, 1979 issue of the Eufaula Tribune.
[2] This is the actual Letter to the Editor on page 4 of the July 31, 1979 issue of the Eufaula Tribune. Reproduced with permission from the Eufaula Tribune.

©1989/2016 by kemorgan65

Credits:
*Banner image by ForestWander http://www.ForestWander.com [CC BY-SA 3.0 us (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons
*Newspaper clipping courtesy of the Eufaula Tribune!