Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 (20 page)

Leon folded his arms across his chest. The other players stopped as the P.E. teacher pressed the towel against Grant's face, who muttered a continuous litany of "Damn, damn, damn."

"I think you'll need stitches," the P.E. teacher said.

"I don't know," said Leon. "The paddle just slipped."

It was the only winning shot he made that day.

Leon didn't go cat hunting that night or the night after.

Wednesday night, he put a quarter pound of hamburger in a sock he'd stolen—he didn't know whose sock belonged to who—took it out to the shed and dropped it through the window. He could barely see his hands in the moonless night. Stars glittered with the peculiar intensity they were capable of in unpolluted, high country air, not competing with the light wash that hid them in the city.

Inside the shed, something scrambled over the dirt. Its voice vibrated dryly, like a nail rasp drawn across a rock.

Leon worked his way around the building, trying not to let the scrub oak catch his coat. "Do you want more, boy?" he said, as he unclasped the door and swung it open. A black shadow, much longer than a dog, not moving like a dog at all, whipped past him into the dark. Leon took a small flashlight from his pocket and shone it into the shed. Bones, everywhere. Fine, delicate cat bones and skulls and fur. He wrinkled his nose against the smell. Looks like it's time to muck out the shed again, he thought.

By midnight under a camp lantern's hissing brightness that threw sharp edged contrasts everywhere, he'd filled five heavy black plastic trash bags with shovelfuls of broken bones, uneaten skin and scat. He'd wrapped a scarf across his nose and mouth, but it didn't help much.

The turkey raptor appeared noiselessly at the door, watching Leon. Its head moved like a bird's—quick, jerky switches from position to position—but it didn't have a beak, and nothing bird-like peered from its eyes. The library said velociraptors were only about three feet tall, and weighed thirty or so pounds. Must be average height, Leon thought, because when the two-legged creature stretched up, it stood almost five feet tall, and he guessed it weighed more like seventy or eighty pounds. Maybe his creature came from velociraptors' bigger relatives. What caught his eye most, though, were the feathers. When he found it last summer, a third the size it was now, he'd misidentified it as a turkey, not a dinosaur, because in his mind dinosaurs were scaly. The reddish and beige feathers looked as if they were designed for a creature that lived in the desert, not the mountain forests. Longer feathers draped like a veil from the clawed front legs that folded against the turkey raptor's chest when not in use, more like wings than arms if it weren't for the claws, and the tail feathers were also long. They rustled when it moved. Small, form fitting feathers covered its body except for the well-muscled legs and the face; the long, tooth-filled, deadly face that stared at him so intelligently.

The turkey raptor bent around, licking the feathers on its shoulder, preening like a cat.

"Good boy," said Leon, petting its head as he dragged the last bag out the door. The raptor rumbled in its throat.

Rumors about Lewis Lake circulated around the school all morning. "I heard a mountain lion got him," a freshman said while talking to a friend in the bathroom as Leon washed his hands. "A mountain lion wouldn't break through a window," said the other boy. "I think Lewis torqued someone off, and they made it look like a mountain lion."

"Possible. He didn't have many friends."

During homeroom announcements, the principal reminded the students to always store food safely and to bear-proof their trashcans. "When you live in the wild, you have to respect the wild animals," she said. "Remember, they were here first."

Leon thought about Lewis's gun. He wondered if he had time to get it out. He wondered if Lewis pulled the trigger on the empty chamber.

Liselle leaned on the locker next to Leon's for the second time that week. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face looked drawn and tired.

A student senate member, a perky girl in tennis shoes and rolled up jeans, stopped in front of Liselle, her arms covered in bright yellow, plastic bracelets. "Would you like an anti-bullying wristband?" she asked. "We could really use your support. Half off pictures at the dance if we can get enough kids involved."

"Choke on it." Liselle stared at her with eyes so flat the student senate girl froze in uncertainty; then she clicked. Leon thought it very interesting to see—he could almost hear the student senate girl's synapses resetting—she turned to Leon. "Would you like an anti-bullying wristband? They're free and for a good cause." She smiled, pointedly not looking at Liselle who glared into the girl's ear.

"Sure," he said, which earned him another smile that flicked on and off like a light switch.

When she greeted the next student in the hallway, Leon dropped the wristband in his locker.

Liselle didn't look at Leon. "Did you hear about Lewis Lake?" He wasn't sure at first she'd directed the question to him.

"Just some stories about a mountain lion," he ventured, not positive she wanted an answer.

"I don't think a lion did it."

Leon wondered why she seemed so sad. He tried to think about what to say, but nothing came, so he shut his locker and walked toward class. Before he turned the corner, ten feet away, he looked back. She hadn't moved. In her hand, which he didn't notice before, she held a long, sand-colored feather. In the hallway light, it looked almost pink. She twirled it between her fingers, back and forth.

Evidently, half the students signed the anti-bullying poster because at day's end, the principal announced Saturday's dance pictures would be half price. Leon read the signatures. Near the bottom on the left, he found Beau Harmon, who had signed his name (Leon had to squint to read it), BEAU F.U. HARMON. Simon True and the two other evil musketeers had signed it too. Beside Lewis Lake's signature, someone had added RIP, and another wrote WE'LL MISS YOU. A third message, poorly scratched out, read WHAT DO WE EAT? WHAT DO WE EAT? LEWIS MEAT! LEWIS MEAT!

Gleedy passed out an essay question for English class for
Crime and Punishment.
It read, "Discuss Dostoevsky's use of coincidence as a plot device in the novel. Does it affect the narrative's plausibility?"

Beau Harmon opened the essay book Gleedy had passed out and began writing. Leon had to admit that while Beau served as a role model for douches and sociopaths, he always did his homework.

Leon glanced at Beau's booklet.

"Take a picture, dickwad. It will last longer."

Leon opened his own exam book, and drew a mountain range. In the foreground, stick-figure dinosaurs ran in a herd from left to right.

Gleedy put his hand on Leon's shoulder. Leon jumped. "A picture may be worth a thousand words," Gleedy said, "but at least it has to be about something Dostoevsky wrote. I don't recognize that scene. How about Raskolnikov's or Razumikhin's portrait instead?"

Leon considered stealing from Gleedy, maybe his jacket that hung from the office chair, but he decided the teacher wanted to be funny and kind, not mean.

Saturday night, Leon approached the shed cautiously. He'd never not fed the turkey raptor for two days in a row. He held two socks with a hamburger ball in each, and a Colorado State University ball cap he'd smeared meat on.

When he dropped them in the window, the turkey raptor snarled, a sound that made hair stand up on the back of Leon's neck. He realized he didn't know how fast the rap-tor would grow (or how much). Sure, the animal acted cute now and let him pet its saw-toothed head, but how big would it get? What if it decided it would be easier to just eat him and not run all over the mountains looking for a good meal, especially ones Leon sent it to find? He opened the door, and the raptor poured out like a black flash.

Leon ran back to the house, grabbed his binoculars. The dance would have already started on the football field. He'd be able to get a good view from a hill overlooking the school.

Through the binoculars, illuminated by the DJ's colored spotlights and strobes, the dance looked more like a play or an animated diorama than real life. Student Senate had strung balloons, streamers, and Christmas lights from poles set along the sidelines. Even a hundred yards away, the music reverberated in his chest. Most kids were dancing, many grinding when they didn't think the chaperones were watching, a dance style involving the girl turning her back against the boy so he could rub himself against her butt.

The breezeless and warm night had to relieve Student Senate. In the mountains, weather remained undependable. It had snowed on this date last year.

Some kids stood or wandered next to the field. Leon recognized a few. He didn't see Liselle, but he couldn't identify most of the students in the darkness and chaotic light. He wasn't sure dances were even her thing, but he did see Beau Harmon standing with a girl Leon didn't know. The strobe flashed them into brilliance and then hid them in between.

Leon hadn't been watching for more than five minutes when several kids at the far end of the football field raced toward a teacher. Leon studied the scene. Two boys in suits and ties, and three girls in long, formal dresses gestured frantically, pointing in the direction they'd come from. The teacher followed.

Leon wondered if the turkey raptor would stay with an attack, or hit and run with so many people around.

Within a minute, on the other side of the field from Leon, the crowd moved. Leon knew sudden crowds in a school often meant a fight had broken out, although in this case he doubted it. Above the music, someone screamed, and then several screams. The principal rushed to the DJ, waving his arms. The music stopped, and in the sudden silence, students yelled. Hundreds of students crowded toward the disturbance, except for a handful who ran toward the school. The DJ turned on all his lights, including the strobe that freeze framed the action. The big field lights flickered, but they would take minutes to grow to helpful brightness.

By the colored lights and strobe, Leon tracked Beau Harmon. Beau peered into the gathering crowd, then ran toward the parking lot, away from the lights and away from everyone's attention. Did he know Simon True and Grant Haver were down? Had he connected the dots? His date clung to his arm for a second, but he shook her off and she fell.

Flash, darkness, flash. Only the strobe light shone bright enough to reach Beau as he ran, incongruously formal for a boy who almost always wore lumberjack shirts and beat-up ball caps. A flash caught the turkey raptor, tail extended, head low, on a charge ten feet behind Beau, and in the next f lash Beau was down, the raptor crouched over him like a pale specter. The tableau repeated for a half dozen flashes before Beau's date reached him. Leon couldn't believe anyone cared enough about Beau to follow, but she did. For a flash the raptor stood on top of the body, its jaws rending jacket and the flesh beneath, and in the next, the girl stood beside the remains, hands on her face, frozen, the raptor gone.

Leon packed his binoculars in the case, and walked toward home.

Mountain nights aren't bad, thought Leon, swinging the binoculars lazily as he walked. No breeze tonight, so the trees didn't rustle. He had traveled far enough from the high school that the shouting and screaming faded, although he heard a siren approaching on the highway above town. He wondered what the authorities would make of the mess. Did kids see the turkey raptor? If they tried to describe it, would anyone believe them?

He doubted it.

He thought about cats. From now on he would always find the turkey raptor the best cats, and as it grew he might need to find two a night instead of just making them a special treat.

Happily, he wanted to whistle.

But as he crossed the last street to his block, he grew uneasy, three houses from home. Both street lights were out. The neighboring houses, empty now that the summer people had gone, stared through blank, black windows. On one porch, a wind chime rattled although Leon felt no wind. Behind the houses, up the mountain slope, a crunching, clacking told him rocks were falling. Perhaps it is a deer, he thought, or elk, but he didn't believe it. He moved off the sidewalk, into the street and away from the sound.

Wood snapped behind his house; nails shrieked as they pulled from timbers, then heavy crushing sounds, followed by a familiar animal rasp: the turkey raptor's furious cry. Darkness covered the street and houses shouldering from the night; reflecting light glinted from windows, but the mountain's shadow hid the trees behind, and whatever happened that shattered wood and clacked its giant teeth remained invisible.

The turkey raptor squawked, an utterance Leon had never heard from it. Then the sound cut off. More rocks slipped down the mountain, as if a thing both heavy and fast ran along the slope.

He stood in the street, knowing he'd arrived too late. Whatever happened was done. A shape moving toward him startled him. A flashlight flicked on. Liselle stood before him, a sweatshirt zipped to her neck, and a determined set to her mouth. "Did you know Lewis Lake was my half brother?" she said. "He's family." Leon shook his head. She held the pink feather in the other hand. "They can hunt by smell," she said. "Not many people know that. They're nocturnal and hunt by smell."

"What was it?" said Leon, sick with the knowledge of the destruction behind his house. The turkey raptor would have returned, waiting for him, waiting for a petting and a cat. The raptor nearly purred with a cat or two a day. "It was so big."

"Utahraptor. I keep it in an old barn." Liselle faced his house. "Do you know who lives here? Do you know who this belongs too?" She held up the feather. Leon tried to keep his voice calm, but it shook. He felt it. "No, no idea." Liselle said, "I'll come back tomorrow to find out. There's a reckoning to be paid. You have to stand up to people like this. You have to show them you won't be pushed around, or they'll never stop."

Leon wondered if he could reach his mother tonight. He'd have to hitch hike. Could he convince her to never come back to Decatur, to the house filled with their odor? He hoped so, he hoped to god, and he was so, so sorry.