The Nine Lives of Felicia Miller (13 page)

He didn’t exactly feel like jumping up and running but something inside of him screamed
Get the hell out of here now! Now, you idiot!

“Jesus help me,” he muttered, his heart starting to quiver like a bowl of yellow jello. Tottering on shaky legs he found his bicycle and set it upright. His hands were trembling uncontrollably and his head felt light from loss of blood.

Rather than mounting the bike he picked it up by its purple metal-flake frame and started to jog down the path, figuring he could make better time on foot until he reached the asphalt road leading to town.

His face felt like fire and ice; skewered by hot knives and icicles. Cold drops of blood dripped past his eyes from his forehead.

Gotta make the road. Just gotta make the fucking—

Suddenly it was back, blasting onto his head with a heartstopping snarl. Claws like bayonets tore into his cheeks and scalp, punching through flesh to the bone.

Oogie threw his bike down and reached up to pull the savage thing off, but his trembling fingers slipped on its blood-soaked fur and he couldn’t get a grip on the wriggling creature.

Remembering the switchblade in his pocket he reached for it but his panicked fingers couldn’t find the slit  of his jacket pocket. Finally his hand fumbled through the opening and frantically yanked the knife from his pocket. But when he pushed the button the force of the switchblade springing open made it jump from his blood-slicked fingers.

He dropped to his knees and reached up again, trying to pull the animal off his head. But it kicked at his hands and wrists, scoring his tendons with its razor-sharp claws. He realized it was hopeless and resumed his efforts to find the fallen knife, groping blindly on the forest floor. But his wildly searching fingers hit the knife, knocking it further out of reach.

He tried punching at the animal but his fists just drove its claws deeper, or glanced off its bloody pelt.

The pain he felt was overwhelming. Warm blood drenched his collar, cooling quickly as it soaked down into his shirt. Strips of loose flesh fluttered like dime store banners from his forehead and cheeks. One of his ears dangled free, hanging upside down and inside out by a bloody sliver of skin. A cool gust of wind chilled the exposed bone of his skull.

Then worst of all he felt the long hard claws of the beast dig into his tightly closed eyelids. They felt like sharp squat roofing nails being forced into his eyes.

With a pain he’d never imagined possible his eyeballs exploded. Hot goo trickled down his ravaged face.

And suddenly the animal was gone, leaving him alone, blinded and bleeding and helpless in the woods. He sank forward clawing at the cold wet soil.

In blind desperation he dragged himself across the ground, writhing like a snake with a broken back. His voice was an incoherent wail, echoing through the woods like a chorus of half-mad ghosts.

His knees slipped on damp leaves in blazing autumn colors he’d never ever set eyes on again.

His hands found the cold steel frame of the cherished bicycle he’d never be able to ride again.

A quarter mile away, a burly Scottish wildcat hurdled a fallen tree and bounded away through the woods. Adrenalin pumped through its system. The dramatic striped pattern of its fur was barely recognizable, covered head to toe in fresh red blood.

Reaching the center of Devil’s Point it hopped onto a boulder and paused to rest and clean itself up. Licking its soggy fur. Savoring the fresh sharp taste of blood.

Delicious blood. Human blood.

Mmm… yes… I could get used to this.

Felicia licked for nearly half an hour before she felt clean enough to stop. She sat on the rock for several more minutes, gazing up at the crescent moon. It smiled down at her. Smiling like the Cheshire cat.

Two down,
Felicia thought happily.

Two down and three to go.

115

After just a few hours sleep, Felicia woke feeling strangely refreshed. She was pleasantly surprised to find herself so relaxed and full of energy. She wasn’t a morning person under any normal circumstance, and had expected her nocturnal forays to be exhausting.

Instead she was up and rarin’ to go, as her father liked to say.

Don’t question it,
she told herself.
Just go with the flow, girl. There’s nothing bad about feeling good.

She lingered in bed for a moment, replaying the previous night in her head.

After dispatching Oogie she’d spent a few hours prowling the woods, exhilarated by her act of revenge. Too pumped to simply go home and lurk in her bedroom ‘til dawn, she headed into town.

She wandered through side streets and backyards, taking mental note of barking dogs who warned of her predatory presence… security lights triggered by motion detectors… and other possible dangers to avoid on her subsequent late night forays.

She made it home before dawn, hopped through her open bedroom window and took a catnap on her vanity. Her alarm clock, set before she started her evening adventure, woke her with minutes to spare before sunrise.

She gazed at her cat face in the mirror then leapt to the floor as the sun rose and her muscles started twitching and her transformation back to human form began. Relieved that her adventure had ended without a hitch, she calmly reset the alarm clock, climbed into bed and fell fast asleep. When it buzzed an hour later she woke feeling refreshed.

But she was shocked when she glanced in the mirror and saw her face covered with patches of dried brown blood.
Oogie’s filthy blood.

Quickly she crept to the bathroom and closed the door, just in time before she heard her parents’ bedroom door open and her mother’s footsteps patter down the hall.

Her mother was surprised to find the bathroom door locked. Usually she had to drag Felicia out of bed in the morning for school. “Felicia? Are you up already?”

“I’ll be out in a minute, mom.”

Felicia scrubbed herself thoroughly in the shower, then returned to her room.

She shimmied into her tightest pants and a thrift shop spandex top decorated with a rhinestone cat face. It was kitschy enough to be borderline tacky but she no longer gave a damn what her classmates thought of her, and was amused at the prospect of making a bold-faced yet secretive statement about her alter identity.

And if by some fluke someone has already discovered the fate of Oogie it’ll be especially sweet. They’ll have to know by his condition that it was a cat that did him in.

She thought of him lying in the woods where she’d left him, bloody and helpless. She knew he was horribly blinded. The memory of digging into his eyeballs with her thick, power-packed claws was still fresh in her mind. It sent a shiver up her spine.

A fiendishly happy shiver.

She imagined the terrible horror he must have felt. Pain was one thing. She’d made sure he’d had plenty of that. But the real horror was knowing that the world as he knew it was over. Finito. Gone. Permanently stolen away. Just as hers had been.

She felt no pity for Oogie. She felt nothing other than satisfaction. He was a closed chapter in her life. A despicable bastard the world would be better off without. And if by some chance he did manage to survive, he’d never abuse another girl as long as he lived.
If he manages to survive.

She looked at herself in the mirror. The nerdy girl she’d been just a few weeks ago didn’t look back at her. Instead she saw a sleek, sexy young woman brimming with confidence and vitality.

She hissed at herself playfully in the mirror then headed downstairs to breakfast. Ready to greet the day. Ready to plan her next mission.

115

“Felicia! Hey, girl. I haven’t s-seen you lately. Not s-since…” Crystal stuttered, “S-since you s-started hang-ging out with R-ruta.”

Felicia slowed her gait, allowing Crystal to catch up to her. The buzz in the school hallway was no different than any other day. Apparently Oogie was still in the woods, undiscovered.

“I w-wanted t-to th-thank you,” Crystal continued. “For what you d-did in the c-cafeteria.”

“Forget it,” Felicia replied, without looking at her.
Forget it, you little chicken-shit, who didn’t even have the balls to help me when I ran into the woods. Who didn’t even have the courage to report what you knew was a dangerous situation to an adult.
“It was nothing,” she continued, then turned and looked Crystal dead in the eye. “Nothing any friend wouldn’t do for another.”

Crystal swallowed a lump of humility that stuck like a peach stone in her throat.

“W-wanna go g-grab a c-coke?” she finally blurted, “M-my treat.”

“Thanks, but it’s my turn to feed Mrs. Cuddles,” Felicia said coolly. Without another word, she turned and headed for the biology lab.
Let the little twerp stew.

Crystal stood watching her walk away, regretful and insecure. Wondering if her friend would ever forgive her.

Suddenly someone slapped her right buttock and jiggled it playfully. Startled by the rude surprise she turned and caught Wally whipping his hand away, with a shit-eating grin on his face. A grin that said,
I know you’d never dare report me
.

“Hey cupcake,” he said jauntily, “What you doin’ tonight? You want to come to a party? Just you, me… and my boys.” He cupped his balls suggestively.

Crystal clutched her schoolbooks defensively and hurried away without a word.

Wally’s mocking laughter followed her down the hallway.

***

“Hey there, Mrs. Cuddles. Long time no see.” It had been weeks since Felicia was scheduled to feed the rabbit. She’d been too distracted by the dramatic changes in her life to visit on her off days like she used to.

She unlatched the cage but as she reached inside the rabbit reacted in panic. Leaping away from Felicia’s hand, she darted frantically from corner to corner, banging into the sides of the cage in a desperate bid to escape.

“Hey. What’s wrong, little girl? It’s me. Felicia. You remember me. I’m your buddy. It can’t have been so long that you’ve forgotten— Ow!”

Felicia yanked her hand from the cage. A thin stream of blood ran down her index finger where the rabbit had bitten her. The back of her hand was covered with dozens of raw red scratches where the rabbit had gone on a kicking frenzy.

The bite was deep and painful. Felicia squeezed her throbbing finger to contain the bleeding, surprised by how quick and sharp a bite the cute little bunny had delivered.

“Really, Mrs. Cuddles? I thought we were friends.”

She replayed the scene in her head, trying to recall something she might have done to provoke the attack. Anything that might have been different from her previous visits with her furry friend.

But deep inside she knew exactly what had triggered the attack. Something she could not change.

Things will never be the same between us, my little friend.
Opening the cage she tossed some food inside and quickly latched the door.

Then she hurried away to nurse her wound, without telling anyone what happened.

115

“A cat?”

A shiver ran up Sparrow’s spine.

What is up with all this fucking cat bullshit? Now one’s attacked Oogie? Leaving him so fucked up he’d be better off dead?

“Yeah. It’s pretty fuckin’ weird, ain’t it?” Wally took a toke from the joint in his hand and passed it to Sparrow.

Sparrow accepted it, but for the first time ever in his life he felt a twinge of guilt for smoking it. After all, it had come from Oogie’s stash. His final harvest. If they wanted free weed after this batch ran out, they’d be forced to take over where Oogie left off. To find a secret spot in the woods and start a garden of their own.

In the woods.
The woods where Oogie had his fucking eyes scratched out.

“What kind of fucking cat could that to him anyway?” Sparrow asked. “You don’t think it was the same cat that…?”

“What? Are you fucking kidding me? That mangy little housecat couldn’t do shit.”

“He nailed you, didn’t he?” Sparrow argued. “And he was there when Marky got snake bit in the shed. It’s like… like he lured us into a trap.”

“Really? A fucking cat was smarter than you two boneheads? I guess I can buy that. But he didn’t attack Marky, did he? A snake did. And he only got his claws on my family jewels ‘cause I had him cornered and was trying to bash his fuckin’ head in. He took me by surprise, sure. But that was nothin’ like what happened to the Oogster. That had to be a fucking bobcat at least. Maybe even a mountain lion.”

“No way, dude. If it was a mountain lion he’d be dead for sure. Maybe a baby one, I guess. Do the baby ones hunt, you think?”