with a jolt, certain she really had heard a cat. She hurried downstairs in a bathrobe, heart beating fast, but left the lights off. What if it was actually the guy who had killed Snuff, returning for her? Moving silently, she advanced to the window in the back study, and lifted the curtain to look outside. The moon was high and nearly full. She stared and stared, and sure enough saw a cat hopping up the steps. It’s a ghost, she thought wildly. It’s Snuff’s ghost. Quickly she stepped to the back door and jerked it open. With her movement the back light turned on, and the creature there ran off a few yards. But it was tawny, not calico, and it was larger than Snuff, with matted fur. It was Lion, the wild tom from the empty lot. And he had left her a present. She knelt down and looked at it. It was a rat, and thoroughly dead. Turning her head, she could see two little puncture marks on its neck where the blood had been sucked out. The Sons of Judas hadn’t killed her cat, she realized. It was just Lion, fighting with Snuff the way they always had. But this time Lion had changed. The virus mutated. It jumped species. Mind aswirl, she closed the door and went back upstairs to bed. One way or another, she had another story to investigate. — In the early dawn she woke suddenly, eyes wide with realization. “Oh God,” she cried, as she threw on her robe again. What if she was too late? She shoveled in her house slippers, getting them filthy. She hoped her neighbors didn’t see her. They’d think she was crazy. When she was close to the box, she got down on her knees to clear away the last of the soil. When she heard the first meows, she began crying again. Snuff wasn’t dead, of course, not really. He’d just been sleeping, in the prevampiric coma. She opened the lid and Snuff exploded out of the box like a rocket, tearing halfway across the yard before stopping to lick himself. “Snuffkin!” Patty cried with joy, extending her arms to him. But Snuffkin only hissed at her, and from where she sat she could see the exaggerated fangs. She retracted her arms, and Snuffkin turned and climbed over the fence and was gone. Oh well, she thought. Snuff always had been a bit of a handful. No. 145
15 Publizr Home