Rabid Animals and Noises in the Night

A Chapter by Sammich

When I wake up, the darkness tricks me into thinking that I should still be sleeping. As I look up to the sky, though, I see a huge cumulonimbus cloud hovering over me. The wind has died down, and this makes the wailing more prominent, but I easily shake it off when I feel the surging pain of my tired arm. My eyes direct themselves to the culprit. Cat`s head hasn`t moved at all since last night, which sends stabbing pain through my arm. I quickly but steadily retract my arm, placing Cat`s head on the ground. Then as I massage my arms I complain, “Someone could have driven a thousand nails to my skin, and it would still feel much better than this!”

“What?” Cat asks groggily, opening her eyes, and staring up at me.

“Nothing. Did you sleep well?” I ask Cat, plucking some berries off a nearby bush. “Edible?”

“Edible,” she answers quickly, “and yes I did sleep well. Thank you.”

I pull out the uneaten bread from last night, and use my knife to cut the bread into six thick slices.

“Bread again!” Cat`s eyes widen at the thought.

“Yes. I hope you don`t mind.”

“Oh, I don`t. Trust me.” her eyes stay widened as she thinks of this scrumptious feast.

“Good,” I laugh handing her a slice of bread and some large, juicy berries on top.

We eat in silence enjoying the homemade bread that Grandma had packed for me. The only thing that breaks the silence is the occasional smack of our fingers when we suck the berry juice right off our fingers.

When Cat is eating her second slice of bread and berries, a thin bunny with long matted hair passes our picnic. Cat takes the berries off her bread, and holds them out to the bunny. “Here little guy,” she says sweetly, “have some breakfast.”

The bunny hops over to Cat cautiously and when he is an arm`s length from her he looks up from the ground with his vicious, humanlike, green eyes. Detest fills his eyes as he glares at her, his eyes narrow into small slits. Cat looks at me as if to ask, “What`s his problem?”

He lunges at her, and injects his killer nails on his left paw into her upper and lower neck, ripping away the flesh. Blood sputters out and splashes me in the face. I wipe the blinding blood out of my eyes as I grope at my belt for my knife. Everything is blurry, and I fear for Cat`s life, as I cannot see to help her. My hand brushes against a metal object, and I grab it, my hand clutching the handle.

I plunge the knife into the bunnies back, before he can strike her a third time. I let the knife sink as deeply as it can into the little devil. I repeatedly stab him, to make sure that this predator-turned-prey is

dead, though I am positive that I killed him with the first blow. It`s his punishment for messing with Cat.

As I bandage Cat`s wound, tears of both pain and misunderstanding fill her eyes. “I just wanted to feed it. I know what it`s like to starve, and even though he was an animal, I could relate to him.” She cries.

“I know, Cat. We just… need to be careful,” is all I can say. I can`t speak my real thoughts, because “Terror lurks around every corner,” would definitely unnerve her. I throw the thought out of my head, and focus on treating the three-inch gash in her neck. I dab the wound with a sterile cloth drenched in water.

“Ow! Ow! Stop, please!” Cat cries out covering the area with her hand.

I gently pull her hand away from her gash, so that I can continue washing it. “It`s for your own good. He got you good,” I say trying to laugh to lighten the mood, “but I got him better. Don`t worry.”

Through her tears, I believe I catch a sparkle of laughter that lingers in her eyes for a moment.

“You`ll live, I promise,” I tell her as I wrap the rolled gauze around her neck. “It`s a good thing that I brought a first aid kit along.” I say whiping the blood from my knife, and staining the grass.

I sit there staring into the small kit, wondering what I can give her to relieve the pain, or even just to prevent infection. There is only one thing nagging at me, “music is the internal healer.”

“Do you like music?” I ask.

“Yeah, my mom used to sing to me all the time. She sang ‘better than the angels’ my dad would say,” Cat says dreamily, staring straight at me.

I stroke her hair, and start singing A Mother`s Lullaby to her, drifting into my own thoughts.

Cat interrupts these thoughts. “You sing just like my mommy.”

“Thank you,” I answer. This is the first time that I look at her since the song began. The blood is seeping through the gauze, so I leave it on, but add a new gauze.

“Now you should rest for a while, at least until the blood stops.” I add another bandage to collect the dripping blood.

Cat sleeps for a few minutes, as I keep my focus heaven bent. When she wakes up, I add a third gauze to her new collection, but this one is drenched in water, to keep her neck cool.

“You had better tell your neck to stop bleeding, I`m all out of gauze.”

Cat laughs at this and then asks, “Where did you learn that ‘close your eyes’… song?”

“My mom used to sing it to me, when I was younger and when…” I stop short, not willing to open up

my heart`s wound. “I sang it to my brother every night, when I was at my home.”

We stare at our slices of bread, lying on those coffin plates. Neither of us desire to eat, the memories are just too horrific, so I throw it out for the birds. Maybe they will like the bloodstained bread better than we would. I check Cat`s gauze, and remove the first and second ones, because the blood has stopped. I soak them in the river, and walk slowly back to Cat.

"Can you hurry?" Cat asks impatiently, but ever so sweetly, "The sweat is stinging me and it really hurts.”

This produces some energy in me, and I quickly wrap the gauze around her neck. She`s just like my brother, I wouldn`t let him suffer either. “It`s time to get the move on,” I say grabbing both her backpack, and my own.

“I can carry my backpack,” Cat says trying to lift it off my shoulder.

“I got it.” I tell her. I was positive that “It would cause too much strain on your neck” would rub her the wrong way, so I just stick with the first sentence.

If not carrying her backpack didn`t rub her wrong, then I`m sure that me insisting that we stop every twenty-five minutes to wet her bandage, to put it back on, and to force her to drink some water does.

“I`m fine really,” Cat sighs, irritated at every stop.

“Look, I`m not going to let you dehydrate or get an infection. You`re coming down this mountain with me, you got that?” I ask in a stern voice.

“Got it,” she says rolling her eyes. Does she not realize how this wound could still kill her!

Around one o`clock, we have trudged one mile up the now steep terrain. My calves are so sore, from just plain walking. My foot feels like it is one, big blister on the verge of popping right off my leg.

I look back at Cat, and notice that she is struggling to keep up with me. No…she`s struggling to walk period. She uses the trees to steady herself. The loss of blood has seriously weakened her, and her burnt face has lost its color. It is growing paler with each painful step. “Let`s stop here,” I say dropping my backpack to the ground with a light thud. I pull out the clothes, and fold them neatly into a pillow. “Lie down,” I instruct her, not taking “no” for an answer.

She immediately obeys, and I cover her with my blanket. Then I pull the beef jerky, nuts, and coconut out of my backpack, and mix them in the pot. I add water to this hodgepodge, to give it some density. I put this on a roaring fire, and wait for it to cook. “A great way to both feed her, and hydrate her,” I laugh craftily to myself.

The sweet aroma of the stew mixes with the choking smoke, which tells me either that the stew is done, or that it just waters my taste buds. I don`t know how well it will taste together, but I`m sure it will be fine.

When I turn back, Cat is sleeping like a rock. I debate with letting her sleep, or waking her to eat. Her ghastly white face sends shivers of fear down my back. What if I didn`t do enough, or the right thing to save Cat? I could have caused this, and she may die a drawn-out, painful death! What have I done! How can I reverse the symptoms! These thoughts fly through my head, hurling themselves at me. Better let her sleep.

As soon as the stew is cold and the fire has died down she starts to arouse. At least I had left the stew on the fire, so it`s not too terribly cold. “Cat, you need to eat,” I say softly, arousing her a little more.

She opens her mouth half way, and I prop her up with my arm. I begin to feed her our lunch, working slowly so that she doesn`t choke on the food.

“I can feed myself,” Cat says when she is wide-awake. She reaches for the pot, but she is so weak that when she lifts her arms, they just flop to her side.

“I`ve got it,” I tell her in my motherly voice. This takes me a back, because I hadn`t used that voice since I left Tieson.

Clank!

The spoon hits the bottom of the pan, and I scrape at the sides for one last spoonful. Then I lower Cat`s head, and she closes her heavy eyelids, to rest in peace.

I sit there watching her painful, yet calm expressions. Her eyebrows crease together, and her lips form a slight frown, the first one that I`ve ever seen cross Cat`s face. Her body twitches violently, as if to throw a bug off her shoulder. Her hands clench in tight fists, ready to pound the next person who wakes her from her slumber. Her heavy breathing echoes through the ever-silent forest, bouncing off the trees.

“Sleep all you want, Cat,” I whisper brushing her muddy hair out of her filthy face. “We`ll wait out the night here.”

A raindrop lands on her left cheek, followed by numerous others. I search frantically for something to shelter her from the rain. She can`t catch a cold, on top of everything! I panic. I take about five deep breaths, and slowly let them out, trying to concentrate on what to do. Then the wheels start turning, the right way. Make a shelter! I scream at myself. But…how?

My eyes follow the trees up to the dark clouds. I only see one heavy cloud, but I`m sure there are

others hiding behind the branches…Branches, Blade, use them!

I break some straight, sturdy branches off the trees, letting collected rainwater cascade to the ground. I jam the branches into the ground, crisscrossing them around Cat`s body, two at her head, and two at her feet. I then lay a lighter stick across the top, connecting them. I snatch Cat`s pillow and blanket draping the blanket on top, and tucking the skirts all around the sides, to act as walls.

In the few minutes that it took to build this shelter, the rain has turned from mild, to a natural disaster. As I throw our supplies into the tent, thunder shatters the earth, and lightening shreds the sky. The rain floods the ground, seeping around my sneakers, and making the mud almost impossible to walk in. The strong gales rattle our “quick tent,” but the branches are jammed so deeply into the ground, that they don`t give way.

Once all the supplies have been thrown into the tent, I enter it myself, being careful not to hit my head on the branches, thereby knocking the whole tent over. Our tent is also filled with mud, and Cat is lying in it! The blanket allows the rain to pass, as if it was filled with large holes. It doesn`t bother me, because I`m already drenched from head to toe, but Cat shivers each time a water droplet hits her soaked body, which pretty much means that she is constantly shaking.

I cover Cat`s face with my hands, to shield the most exposed area. Cat`s face is soaked anyway with sweat, and she shakes fervently from the fever. I know that since she can`t help herself, I need to keep her dry. The strangest thing is that she`s sinking in an inch or two of mud, the lightening is as bright as the headlights of a car shining directly into my eyes, and the thunder is louder than a fire truck`s siren with a microphone held up to it. Yet through all of this, she doesn`t even flinch from the noise. I wonder if she`s in a coma or if her sickness is just keeping her under its sleeping spell.

I am searching my backpack for something useful, when I cross paths with my water bottle, and my fancy Indian skirt. Pouring all of the water onto the skirt, and dabbing her head with it, I try to break her sweat. When the skirt has more sweat on it than water, I hold the skirt out into the rain. The hornets from the boat return, stinging my arm. My arm is soaked, again! In a few seconds, I heave the heavy skirt into the tent, and refilling both Cat and my water bottles, wringing the rest of the water into the mud. I use the still drenched skirt to dab Cat`s tired looking face. I repeat this hour after hour throughout the night, which is really the only thing that keeps me awake. I wish to just plop in the mud next to Cat, and fall into a deep sleep.

Around four o`clock in the morning, Cat sits straight up, and lets her supper go, right next to her sleeping area.

“Sorry,” she winces as she realizes that she didn`t choose the proper place to puke. The bread, nuts, and coconut mix with bile, and reeks. The closed in area make the stench even worse. I want to puke right next to Cat`s little pile, but I know that won`t help one bit.

“That`s alright, Cat,” I sigh, trying to keep my last meal down. I am glad that she snapped out of her

coma, or whatever that was. Her head flops into the mud, splattering me with lovely brown stuff. Cat never ceases to amaze me. When the mud seeps around her head, she doesn`t even give one of those girly “Ew! Mud!” looks.

“That`s why your hair is caked with mud,” I sigh as I hide her supper with mud.

In the next twenty minutes, she throws up twice more! If I thought she was sick, before we rested, I was really mistaken. This is much worse! Each time, she would get rid of the junk and plop into the mud, falling asleep, as if nothing happened. And each time, I would crawl over her and cover up the fowl smelling puke. The stench is so bad that I have to cover my nose with my nonmuddied hand. The ever-strong stench of who-knows-what gives me a major headache, and urges me to add to the bitter smell.

About an hour later, her stomach has settled down with the rain. Cat wakes up to the pitter-patter of the leftover storm, and looks at the mud that is covering all but her head, which I have kept above it all. “Did we have a storm?”

”No…the weather was just dandy.”

“What`s that awful smell?” She asks, pulling her hand from the sticky, drying mud, that is crusted on her whole body.

“Your past few meals,” I tell her updating her on her past doings since she blacked out. “Now, get back to bed.”

All she does is rises out of the mud and heads out of the tent, defying my order.

“Where do you think you`re going?” I ask her, surprised that she would disobey me.

“To the river. I`m going to wash this junk off me, and then cook breakfast. You sleep.” She tells me indignantly.

I stumble after her, knocking one of the sticks out of place, and helping the whole tent collapse into the six-inch mud.

“NO!!!” I yell reaching for the blanket and clothes. I collect every piece of our luggage, wash them in the river, and hang them from various tree branches to dry. Then I try to make it back to Cat. Fatigue washes over me, and I just want to drop in the mud and sleep forever. Cat is making something for breakfast, so I trudge on, hoping for something hot to warm me. The storm has cooled down the land considerably, and my feet and hands are numb.

On my way across the three and a half yards to Cat, I run into three…four…five trees, and trip over my large size ten feet. After tripping twice, I decide that it isn`t worth it, so I half crawl half drag myself through the mud.

When I get there, I push myself into a sitting position and just sit there letting my eyes adjust to the

bright sunlight that is rapidly evaporating the mud level.

“Here, I made this,” Cat says, proudly handing me a plate with goop on it. Unless I am really tired, that goop looks like mud.

“What`s this?” I ask, spearing the food with my finger, and smelling it. Yep, it`s definitely mud.

“It`s a drasoral.”

“A drasoral?” I ask Cat.

“Yeah, it`s a dirt casoral, or you could use the fancy name and call it a drasoral,” she explains.

“I had to change my recipe around and use nuts instead of worms, because I thought you might like it better.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say letting my face almost drop into the food. I eat the drasoral, which isn`t that bad. “It tastes like cheesecake,” I complement Cat`s cooking. I know what I`m craving.

“If you say so,” Cat answers doubtfully. “I`ve never had a cheese cake before, but I had a cake once, and it tasted nothing like this.”

“You`ll have to try a cheesecake someday, they are amazing!” My mouth starts to water as I picture the white filling on top of the golden brown crust. I just want one piece, is that too much to ask?

“Not if it tastes like this,” Cat shakes her head.

“What?”

“I don`t want a cheesecake if it tastes like this. I only made this because I wanted to cook something warm for you, that wouldn`t take a lot of time.”

“Well, I think that it is very good. You are an excellent chef.”

“Yeah, and I think that somebody is either crazy, or needs to sleep for a very long time.”

After breakfast we climb onto a branch, low enough to the ground, so that if we fall we wouldn`t break anything; but high enough to escape the mud. We settle in for the rest of the day. The puke mud is so close that we can smell its foulness. Cat only pukes twice, which is a major improvement from this morning and adds to the lovey stench.

A few hours later, I wrench myself from my sleep and grab some beef jerky and bread from my backpack. After I inhale my part, I walk over to Cat and wake her, so she can eat too.

After supper it`s back to bed with us. The mud is only a few inches deep, and we`re too lazy to climb the tree again, so we just sleep next to the fireplace. We do without the blanket and fire, and just surround the pit.

A few hours later, I wake up to a threatening growling. It gets louder and louder, and I just don`t feel right about it at all. “Cat! Cat! Wake up!” I almost scream as I shake her.

She moans and then rolls onto her left side, away from me.

“Cat, get up now,” I try again.

“Ten more minutes, I`m still tired.”

“I know, but we don’t have ten minutes to spare.”

The animal growls again, this time louder.

“Do you hear that?”

“It`s your stomach, just eat something,” she yawns.

“Catara! Get up now.” I jump to my feet as it growls again, and pull Cat up with me.

“Okay, okay. I`m up. Let`s get out of here.”

“Finally,” I grumble under my breath. We grab our backpacks and high tail it out of there. Whatever it is, I refuse to be its dinner tonight.

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