Choker (13 page)

Zoe grabbed Cara’s arm and pointed. Already the dog’s hindquarters were quivering. The girls watched, squatting, their arms wrapped around their knees, as the tremors spread upward along his spine to his forelegs, then his head. He reeled across the yard as if his legs were no longer his own, then snapped back against his chain and fell with a thud to the grass. His mouth hung open. Foam drooled from his tongue. His legs peddled helplessly at earth, tearing away chunks of grass.

Zoe stared at the dog, her face alight. Cara stared at Zoe.

She awoke suddenly with a gasp and sat up in bed, her nightshirt drenched in sweat. She looked at the bedside clock. 3:47 a.m. With a trembling sigh, Cara slowly lay back down on her pillow. It was the old dream. She hadn’t thought about the dog in years. But after the poisoning, she’d had the same nightmare for weeks.

Cara folded her arm over her eyes, trying to slow her hammering heart, and only then did she realize that someone was in bed beside her. She jerked convulsively, biting back a scream before she realized that it was only Zoe. Of course. Her friend lay curled on her side, eyes shut. She was deeply asleep. Cara propped herself on one elbow and gazed down at her. Zoe’s old gray T-shirt was a little sweaty, and her breath was whistling fast through her nose. Cara could hear the little whine as her friend inhaled and exhaled. Her eyes twitched like live animals, and her fingers grasped at the sheets, then relaxed.

She turned her head from side to side as her lips mouthed an unintelligible word. Cara had the disturbing sensation that Zoe was dreaming about the dog too. Her friend’s legs twitched and shuddered, just as the dog’s had when he died. Then Zoe’s breathing slowed. Her fingers relaxed. She sighed, turned on her side, and was still.

Cara watched her for a second longer. Then she dragged her pillow to the very edge of the bed. Curling herself into a little ball, facing away from Zoe, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to sleep. But she laid there for a long time, awake behind her closed eyelids, before deep sleep finally reached up and dragged her back down.

Chapter 14

C
ARA OPENED HER EYES TO CLEAR SUNLIGHT STREAMING
in her window. She glanced over at the other side of the bed, half-expecting to see Zoe gone again. But she was there, the top of her dark, glossy head only barely visible under the covers. Quietly, Cara slipped from under the warm nest of blankets and shivered as the cool dry air assaulted her sleep-warmed skin. She pulled on a hooded sweatshirt and stuck her feet into her sheepskin slippers, then ducked out of the room. Her parents’ door was still tightly shut.

Downstairs, the kitchen was stuffy. Samson strolled in, mewing when he heard her, but Cara ignored him and cracked a few windows. She sniffed appreciatively at the damp leaf smell. High puffy clouds were scudding fast across the deep blue sky. She stuck a couple pieces of bread in the toaster, humming a little to herself. Just then, the back door slammed and Mom came in, wearing her running clothes, her face pink from the outdoors. She jumped when she saw Cara.

“Oh, honey!” she said. “I didn’t know you were up.”

Why did Mom always seem so surprised to find her in her own home? Like finding a houseguest who’s stayed too long. “Yeah, I’m up.”

Samson mewed more insistently. Mom scooped him up. “Baby! Cara, you didn’t feed him?” She took a can of salmon dinner from the pantry and started cranking it open. The fishy smell made Cara want to hang her head out the window.

Mom measured coffee into the coffeemaker. Cara drummed her fingers on the counter. The silence stretched out.

“Oh! I almost forgot! How was the get-together last night? Sarit is very sweet.” Mom bumped into Cara on her way to the fridge.

“It was fine, Mom. Sarit’s nice.” The toaster dinged. Cara grabbed a plate from the cupboard, and pulled the toast out, slapping on thick layers of butter and jam.

Mom took a sip of her coffee. “Cara, I asked Cheryl to clean your room when she comes today. She’s going to shampoo the rugs, so pick up all your clothes so she can do yours, too.”

Cara whirled around. “Mom, no!” Her voice was louder than she intended.

Her mother looked taken aback. “Why not, Cara?” she asked carefully.

Cara realized she was squeezing the plate so hard her knuckles were white. She relaxed her grasp. “It’s just that I hate strangers in my room, touching my stuff. You know that.”

“Well, honey, it’s just Cheryl. And if you pick up your clothes, she won’t have to touch any of your stuff, right?” Mom chuckled at her own joke and patted Cara’s leg, but Cara jerked away without answering and pounded up the stairs.

“Room service.” She pushed open her bedroom door.

“Ooohh.” Zoe extracted an arm from beneath the covers and threw it over her eyes. “What time is it? Why is it so bright in here?” She tried to pull the covers over her head. Cara grabbed them and yanked them off. Zoe screamed and curled up like a shrimp in a T-shirt and gym shorts. “You’re so awful! This is torture.” She tried to grab the covers back, but Cara held them out of her reach and handed her a piece of toast instead.

“Get up!” she instructed. “Mom’s having the housecleaner come in here today.” She gathered an armful of dirty running socks and musty-smelling blue jeans and dumped them into the hamper. “So we have to get out of here. We’re going for a hike—I know this great trail no one goes on—and a picnic at the barn.” She crammed some of her own toast in her mouth. She was ravenous.

“Oh God, you’re insane.” Zoe propped her head in her hands. “Why do I feel like I have a hangover when I haven’t even been drinking?”

Cara threw another sweatshirt and a pair of jeans in her lap. They landed on the toast. “Oooh!” Zoe held up the jeans, the toast glued jam-side onto the butt. Both girls burst out laughing.

The only tricky part of the adventure was slipping Zoe down the stairs while Mom was in the shower. She kept giggling while Cara frantically shushed her. Once they were outside, things were easier. It was only a short, fast walk behind the houses—they couldn’t use the sidewalk of course, much too risky—and then they were safe behind the old elementary school, now boarded up.

“This trail starts right behind the water tower and ends near the barn. No one’s ever on it.” Cara hoisted her backpack a little higher on her shoulders. She didn’t think a block of cheese, a box of Triscuits, and half a pepperoni would weigh so much, but the pack seemed to be getting heavier by the minute. She peered through the trees as they skirted the woods. A thin path wove through the dark tree trunks. “Here it is.”

The girls plunged into the woods, pushing through a heavy thicket of blackberry brambles. In the summer, when the cicadas buzzed in the trees, these bushes were laden with huge, deep purple fruit. The air would be hazy with golden pollen, the sun a flat, blinding white disk in the sky. But now the brambles drooped dispiritedly, their branches a gnarled mass of stiff, brown twigs. The mud squished under Cara’s boots, smelling of peat and rotting leaves. Ahead of them, the path curled up the hill, winding around fallen trees. Cara picked her way through the stream that ran at the bottom of the hill, watching the water wash up over the soles of her boots.

Zoe was quiet behind her. Something about the silence helped Cara broach the question that had been on her mind the last few days.

“So . . . have you heard any news from home?” She kept her voice casual.

“What do you mean?” Zoe answered after a second. She sounded a little out of breath.

Cara skirted a large mud puddle. “Nothing. I was just thinking that your mom must be freaking out by now. I mean, it’s been over a week.”

Zoe snorted. “Not likely. I mean, she’s probably freaking out, but not about me going missing.”

“What do you mean? What’s she freaking out over?” Cara turned to face her friend. Zoe’s face was hard, her eyes blank.

“I did something bad, Cara. But it’s not anything worse than what he did to me. Okay? I can’t go back. And I don’t want to talk about it.” Without waiting for an answer, she pushed by Cara on the path and strode ahead.

Cara’s stomach did a little flip. “Zoe, what are you talking about exactly? What did you do?”

Zoe stopped but did not turn around. “I think I just said I didn’t want to talk about it.” Her back was perfectly straight.

“Okay, okay,” Cara soothed. Zoe started walking again. Cara tried to drag her thoughts back to the more immediate problem. She wasn’t going to be able to keep her parents out of her room forever. It wasn’t that she wanted Zoe to leave—not at all—but she needed to think of
something
.

She took a deep breath. “Zo. Whatever happened, we need to figure out—”

“So how was last night?” Zoe cut her off.

“Amazing. But listen, I’ve been thinking about this situation—”

“Where were you? I was waiting for you.”

Cara gave up. The path was muddier than she expected, and she had to concentrate on not slipping. Better to wait until Zoe was in a more receptive mood.

“Yeah, I went over to Sarit’s.” She watched Zoe’s back for signs of annoyance. “I had a really good time hanging out with Ethan. Alexis was a bitch again, though.” She briefly described the living room encounter.

Ahead of her, Zoe’s back was perfectly straight. Cara wondered how she managed to look like a runway model in a stained sweatshirt and Cara’s too-big jeans. “See, the problem with you, Cara, is that you’re letting her just push you around. You should’ve shoved her into a wall.” She splashed right through a big puddle.

“Zo, your feet are going to be soaked!” Cara pointed out. She hitched up the backpack again. “And when have I ever shoved anything, anywhere?”

Zoe kept walking, even though her jeans were soaked to her knees. “Maybe that’s why you’ve been such a loser in high school.”

The words stabbed Cara like a knife. She stopped walking. “Wait—you think I’m a loser?” Even saying the word hurt. Once again, she felt the spray of Alexis’s spittle on her forehead.

Zoe turned around. She sighed in an exasperated manner, as if talking to a difficult toddler. “Car. I didn’t mean
I
think you’re a loser. I’m just saying what
you
said everyone thinks.”

“Oh.”

Zoe started walking again, and Cara followed. She could feel twin blisters forming on the insides of her big toes.

A small rise loomed ahead of the girls. Cara began the uphill climb, the muscles in her calves straining. A lot of good all that running had done if she was going to be sore after a two-mile hike. The woods crowded around them, the damp branches reaching out to grasp at their shoulders. Cara’s boots squished on the thick coating of wet leaves that covered the forest floor. After a few steps, she realized she could no longer hear Zoe behind her. She turned around. Her friend was standing halfway up the hill, gazing at something in her hands. “What?” Cara called back. Zoe didn’t answer.

Cara tramped back down the hill, trying to keep from skidding in the deep mud. “What?”

“It was just moving around on the leaves, squeaking,” Zoe said mournfully. She looked down at the tiny gray field mouse cradled in her palms. The mouse lay motionless. “It was suffering.”

It took Cara a minute to absorb the situation. “Wait, you just saw this mouse on the leaves and picked it up?”

Zoe nodded. “I had to put it out of its misery.” She looked up sadly.

For a minute, Cara didn’t understand what she meant. “Jesus, Zoe, did you kill it?” The mouse lay limply, its neck bent at an unnatural angle, the long gray whiskers and little pink feet resting against Zoe’s palm.

“Oh my God!” Cara exclaimed in revulsion. She reached out and swiped the mouse from Zoe’s hand. It fell with a little thud to the leaf-covered ground. “That’s totally disgusting.” She stared at her friend. Zoe just gazed back, her violet eyes as calm as always.

Zoe shrugged and walked ahead of Cara. “So, do you think Ethan will want a big wedding, or is he the kind of guy who wants something small?” she called back over her shoulder. Cara stood still a moment, gazing at the little gray corpse at her feet, and then, on impulse, bent down and swept a handful of wet leaves over the body. It didn’t seem right somehow just to leave it exposed to the elements.

“Come on, Cara!” Zoe called. Cara looked up to see her friend standing at the top of the hill, her figure outlined against the sky, now clouded with a scrim of white. Zoe’s hair fluttered out in the breeze like a banner. “I’m beating you!”

They reached the barn a few minutes later. Cara heaved back the big doors, and Zoe immediately flung herself down on the musty hay. Cara felt slightly nauseous thinking of the dead mouse and stripped off her sweatshirt, fanning some air under her blue tank top. The moldy smell was more pungent than ever. The old boards of the stall creaked as Cara leaned back against them and rearranged the wool blanket under her legs. A flash of white up in a far corner of the rafters caught her gaze—an old cloth or something. The shadows were too deep to make out what it was.

Cara hauled out the food and dipped her hand into the crackers. For a while, they ate in silence. Then Cara stuffed the cheese wrapping and the empty Triscuit box back into her backpack, and Zoe closed her eyes. Zoe lay back down on the hay and tucked her hands behind her head.

Cara tipped the last few drops of water from her Nalgene and eyed her friend. “So, where were you last night when I came in?”

Zoe shifted slightly on the hay but didn’t open her eyes. “Nowhere. I was bored, so I came down here to hang out. I fell asleep for a while, I think.”

Cara cleared her throat. “So, you didn’t go . . . anywhere else?” She thought again of the flash of long black hair behind Sarit’s garage. Zoe wouldn’t have followed her, would she?

Zoe sat up. “I just said I was here.” Her face was blank, her eyes wide.

Cara fiddled with some strands of hay, arranging them in a square. “It—it’s just that I thought I saw you . . .” Her voice trailed off. Zoe stared at her unblinking, running her fingers through her long hair. She pulled a few strands in front of her face and examined them for split ends. A brisk wind blew outside, rattling the panes of glass in the broken windows.