- Posting Speed
- Speed of Light
- Writing Levels
- Douche
- Preferred Character Gender
- No Preferences
Chapter 1 | Oakwood Supper
An hour had passed since the cat ate his finger.
Toben had spent that time debating whether to sit on the rock or remain by the tree. He was often criticized for 'just standing there', but on this occasion making others nervous might have worked in his favor. After all, without his index finger the option to poke a belly was diminished, as was the option to scratch his head at this whole dilemma.
Finally, he took a seat. Across from the rock, Hobbers gave a happy squeak while tied to the tree by Toben's cloak. The suspended cat was as large as he was orange, and as content as he was large. He cycled his paws while beetles roamed his fur and butterflies alighted on his nose. The ginger was in his element: making friends and earning attention.
So began the stand-off. Toben's eye-sockets were pools of musty darkness, tapering tear-like to a rictus grimace. They lent him the look of a bureaucrat bearing tragic news. The only sound was from the leaves that danced through the gaps of his ribs and pooled in his hip bones.
He didn't like being without his cloak. He also didn't like being without his finger. A skeleton has few possessions in this world.
The cat gave another squeak. Squirrels were yelling at him to move along, and Hobbers might have obliged had he not been bound so expertly by the cloak. Tight around his belly, taut black against prosperous orange, the constriction was designed to quicken the cat's regurgitation.
"Ride moonward, my dears, for the world, it is not ending," Toben said at the top of the second hour. His jaws barely moved, reinforced as they were with twine – the only part of him, save his cloak, which was more than bone and void. The narrow mouth admitted only troubled sentence fragments. "We're northbound for Amberfly with smeared and slapdash dreamers, to join a generation's victory parade. You'll no sooner halt the moon than stop the coming change. While fools get high the high will fall, though all the streets be paved with riot shields."
Hobbers made a horrible noise, sending bugs and squirrels scattering. It was like an old pickup truck failing to turn over. Indeed, Toben considered helping things along with a slap to the bodywork. But by the time he had gotten up from the rock and crossed to the tree, the cat was openly vomiting.
"That's mine," the skeleton murmured, as if still reciting poetry. He picked up the corroded assortment of bone and knuckle-joints that was once his finger. Then, like a waiter with an insolent wine cork, he mashed the digit against the stump on his right hand.
Hobbers continued to writhe and splutter. More of his forest friends fled.
There was a click before Toben flexed his newly reattached finger. Then, satisfied by its range of motion, he untied the cat. Hobbers plopped to the ground and circled the trunk sadly, licking dew from the grass as if it might freshen his palate. Then the cat watched his skeletal companion get dressed. The tattered robe covered all but Toben's face once the hood was pulled up. From the back he would look like a traveling mystic, and from the front – well, he had been advised to turn his back on anyone he met.
Once cloaked, Toben did just that to Hobbers, and retraced his steps out of the grove. But the ginger cat gamboled after him, meowing all the way. They returned to the scenes of their struggle. The algae-rich pools where Toben had fallen while lunging for Hobbers in the camellia patch. The valley side where towering bougainvillea had snagged Toben with thorn and vine. The sodden slopes where Hobbers had tumbled head-over-haunch in his haste to reach the flooded lowland. Then the boulders split by stands of alder and ash, on which cat and skeleton had hopped like grabby chess pieces.
Hobbers was game for a second round, but with no extremity to bite he could only nip at Toben's cloak. It did nothing to win the skeleton's attention. They climbed the slopes with minimal slapstick, as the setting sun brought purple to the green.
Just before the tree line Toben stopped, and so did Hobbers, wheezing happily as he gazed up at the skeleton. But Toben was looking elsewhere. His cavernous sockets beheld the far highway where valleys flattened out along the Gambler's Coast. As the sun came down it stretched the shadows of a hunched figure, crossing the road from one ditch to the next. A distant scene that might be mistaken for a forager gathering roadkill or a madman chasing portents. The white-shawled creature curled its hands, gripping an imaginary steering wheel as bedraggled hair fell across its features. Then it changed direction, twice in short succession – a sign of mania that ended as it plunged decisively into a bank of moonflowers at the roadside.
Hobbers gave a curious meow, excited to meet a stranger. But Toben pressed on into the foliage. "Stay away from wraiths." It was more like a quoted warning than one of his own.
Deep in the oakwood that crowned the dales, Toben located the campsite. It had been spruced up since his hasty Hobbers-hounding departure. A campfire sent shadows dancing across a clatter of boulders where vegetable sacks were stuffed with leaves and scattered like cushions. Here and there, cardboard boxes spilled rags and leaflets from their sodden insides.
While Hobbers bounded ahead to rub his face on everything, the skeleton looked around for signs of his fellow cat-sitter.
"Oh, Mama told me how to keep a creature sweet. With milk from goats and cows, fruit, vegetables and meat. You cook 'em up, you keep 'em down - salt, acid, fat and heat. And if you ain't the cookin' type just order out them eats!"
"Pickles?" Toben asked.
"Out them eats! Out the meats! Come on, bring out all them eats! If you ain't much for food and such then stay out of my sheets! Out the meats! Out them eats! Come on, bring out all them eats! Cos life ain't glum when you've got some fine flavors to excrete."
"Pickles?" Toben asked.
Toben gave up trying to interrupt, and stood behind Pickles while she continued her presentation. The three-foot possum worked around the campfire, where a pot was set with boiling water and a skillet with bubbling oil. She gripped a bowl with her tail, and sang while tearing skin from a raw chicken. Her striped hoodie was spattered with juices and dusted with spices. She had prepared a dry rub of powders (mostly baking soda) in a separate bowl, where each strip of chicken skin was immersed.
The attendee to her lecture was a long-haired tuxedo cat, posing on the other side of the campfire. This second feline had one paw lifted as it turned its left side, then its right, towards the fire. The exquisite creature was clearly here for the heat and not the meat, but she lent a graceful ear while Pickles rambled.
"Now," the possum explained, "Once the skin dries you have to blanch it. You'll say I'm crazy, but it ensures an even crunch. Meanwhile, we pulverize the meats." She slammed a rock into the bowl of chicken parts – the noise of which erased Toben's third feeble attempt to get her attention. Juices and organs flew around her as she worked. The tuxedo cat gave an indignant growl when some got on her coat, and began grooming all over again.
"We're making balls!" Pickles exclaimed to the cat. "Then we put it back in the skin. Little sacks, like this." She shaped a pouch of dried chicken skin and jiggled it. "Then it goes in the water. Then the grease. It's super-hot, so we seal it up with glue!" She shrieked the word glue as her tail fetched up a tub of dubious-looking paste. She popped the lid and used her other paw to scoop some goop onto her dumplings. "Now stand back, Jess. It's splatter time."
Jess (or Jestaphia, according to her collar) grumbled again and stepped back from the fire, while Pickles stood and raised the bowl above her head. Like a priest in holy rapture, the possum was about to bring the dumplings tumbling into the water pot when Toben made a fourth attempt.
"Pickles?"
The meat went flying, as did Jestaphia, when half of it tumbled into the fire and took the pot and skillet with it. Pickles stretched wide her toothy maw and gave a terrible shriek before dropping, lifelessly, to the ground.
The skeleton waited for the oil and meat debris to stop sizzling. Meanwhile, Hobbers leapt out from behind a box and collided with Jestaphia. His squeak of happy reunion was cut short when Jestaphia whipped around. Hefty though Hobbers was, he was no match for the weight of Jestaphia's bushy tail. One cat whumped on the ground while the other went back to grooming.
"There's a wraith on the highway," Toben announced while drifting between the boxes, examining leaflets. Though shredded he could still decipher their intentions. Local music shows, circus flyers, business cards for handymen and local artists. Deep colors and smudged text. Every time they made camp it was like a rainbow spilled on the soil.
Behind him, Pickles lay unmoving, her eyes closed and her tongue hanging out.
"I think she died here, long ago," Toben continued. "A car crash, I suppose. She looked young. There was sadness there. But when is there not? Leland's Road: it claims people."
Hobbers had now reached Pickles, and was licking the foam and meat glue from her chin.
"I know we have to follow the road," Toben whispered, staring to the distance as sunset painted fire across the treetops. "But so do all things." Then he turned and looked down at the unmoving possum. "Why are you doing that?"
Hobbers leapt clear as Pickles bolted upright. She waved her arms excitedly, paws barely protruding from the baggy sleeves of her hoodie. "Benny! I had an idea while you were gone. Paint me green, head to tail. Ever seen a green possum? No! And neither have they. It's the perfect plan."
"We don't have any green paint."
The possum picked herself up and shuffled around the campfire, scooping handfuls of dirt now clumped with oil and lightly seared chicken balls. "I know what you'll say: we don't have any green paint. But leave that part to me. And don't go improvising. It has to be green. Reckon a passing car will stop when it sees a pink or blue possum lying dead in the road? No! But a green one..." She stuffed a handful of chicken-flavored dirt into her mouth, pondering while she chewed. "They'll take me to a museum, or maybe a sheriff's station. But that's where you come in. You'll need to break me out."
"This doesn't help." Toben answered, before looking down at Jestaphia. The beautiful tuxedo turned her left side towards the skeleton, and made an insistent croak. Toben had no idea what this meant. Jestaphia gave another, more annoyed, croak.
Pickles waved her skillet. "You just don't get the big picture. See – the cats are in the trunk."
Toben stared. "How are the cats in the trunk?"
"You put them in the trunk while the driver's scraping me off the road. Then boom-bang-bingo – we're on our way to the city."
"But how do I get in the vehicle?"
Pickles waved him off while packing up her mess kit. "It's always 'Me! Me! Me!' with you. Running off whenever you want, coming back without warning. Knocking things over. Look at this, Benny – supper is ruined."
Toben lowered his head. "Hobbers ate my fing—"
"Hobbers!" Pickles shouted upon seeing the ginger furball sniffing at her skillet. The bipedal possum bent over and jiggled the cat's cheeks. "There he is! Who wants a chicken ball? Who wants a chumpling? You do! Yes, you do!" She stuffed a handful of meaty dirt into his cheerful, meowing mouth. "Benny, give Jestaphia a dumpling."
Toben did so, and both he and the tuxedo cat were left staring at the strange lump of meat on the ground between them.
"Where's Garret?" Pickles lifted a box with her tail and checked underneath it. "Garret! Here, kitty kitty! Get your cronchy treat."
Toben pointed skyward with his newly attached finger. "He's climbing again."
Overhead, in the dusk-blanched boughs of the canopy, a tabby watched them. Garret's claws were dug into the branches - a stance that exaggerated his wiry, muscular physique. Though the oldest of the cats, he retained the best survival instinct (or street smarts, as Pickles termed it). Garret had not yet come to trust this skeleton and possum who were feeding him.
Pickles tried to amend that situation. She waved a handful of meat at the trees, as if invoking woodland spirits. "Garret! Come get the yum-yums."
Hobbers quietly stole Jestaphia's portion, while Toben continued watching Pickles. "We should go."
Pickles kicked the chicken carcass at her friend. Another stain was added to Toben's robe, along with the cat vomit, rainwater, and cooking oil. "We're not leaving them, Benny. These cats need us. They're lost and trying to get home." She placed Garret's dumpling at the base of the tree he had climbed.
"We don't even know if they're from Amberfly."
"Of course they are!" Pickles scooped Hobbers up and jiggled him as he struggled to swallow Garret's dumpling. "See this collar?" The nametag on the cat's collar glinted in the campfire light. "That's a city collar. You don't get something this nice in the country."
Toben wasn't sure what to make of that. He tried a new angle. "The owner might not want them back."
Pickles almost tripped on her hoodie while dumping water over the campfire. The striped garment was sized for a human adult, which Pickles clearly was not. "You say that because we found them in the middle of nowhere. But sometimes that's where the most cherished things are."
Before Toben could reflect on that – like he reflected on everything the possum said – Pickles scooped up the last dumpling and looked around. "Now, where's Inkh?"
A pair of yellow eyes materialized next to Toben's head. The fourth cat was perched on a low-hanging branch just behind him. Completely black, the kitten blended perfectly with the gathering dark. She gave a small yowl, while scrutiny and disgust brewed in her slow-blinking eyes.
Pickles offered the final dumpling. "Now, Inky Kitty: just try a little piece and see how you feel. It's okay if you don't eat it all. But try your best." She tore off tiny morsels and deposited them into the Inkh-shaped void around the branch.
"We should go," Toben repeated.
"Alright. Take these." Pickles stuffed the uneaten dumplings into the pockets of Toben's robe. "Oh, and some of these." She also stuffed some leaves and shredded pamphlets in there. "Oh, and this rock. That's a nice rock." The possum wriggled her paws through the straps of her rucksack, then picked up a pillowcase in each arm. "Tonight's the night, Benny. You won't be laughing at me anymore."
Toben gave her a puzzled look. As they set off, Hobbers darted after them, as did Garret once assured there was enough room to climb down without getting snatched. The two males darted between the boxes and boulders of the vacated campsite. Meanwhile, the females followed more slowly: Jestaphia sauntering in case a misstep muddied her coat, and Inkh bringing up the rear after casting a knowing glance to the shadowy undergrowth.
Back on the trail, Pickles tittered while hefting the pillowcases. "Oh yes. I'mma wipe that smug look off your face. I know what I saw. It's on the roadside up ahead. You called me crazy. But it's there. And it glows in the dark."
"I never doubted you."
"Don't deny it!" the possum screeched. "I'll prove it soon enough. Just over the next hill. There's a billboard – a fancy one with lightbulbs." She waved a pillowcase around, scattering leaves like glitter. "The Woofle House Diner: five miles ahead." She grinned up at the skeleton, showing an equally impressive collection of bones inside her mouth. "That's what they call a landmark. Last stop before Amberfly city limits."
"Diners don't like me."
"You'll be fine. We'll get disguises from the dumpster. The Woofle House has the best dumpster." Pickles peered up at him, her snout silhouetted in the gloom. "How's your finger, Benny?"
"Corroded by powerful acid," the skeleton moaned. "These cats are not normal."
"You said that when you met me." She bopped him with a pillow. "And look where a little tolerance got you."
"Hmm."
Leaves spilled from the pillowcase as possum and skeleton joined the downhill trail. A crunching carpet was formed for the cats – a procession of fur that ran from bright orange to smothering black. The noise of their paws made music with chirping crickets and croaking frogs.
And at the base of the forest, where moonflowers opened their petals to the night, a Cadillac sat with its lights off, playing dead in the middle of Leland's Road. The creature inside watched as fireflies gravitated towards the skeleton, possum and their four rescues. Light by tiny light, the path of the travelers was tracked.
The driver lowered one hand to the car's radio, smearing dials with an oil-slick of colors. Viscous streaks of purple, pink and green were left on the equipment as the channel skipped and the volume rose. From the white noise a ballad soared, like a proud oak cutting through the clatter of late-night hosts and jingling commercials. An ode to sleepless city nights; a neon fugue of synths and guitars.
"Take care…" The driver's voice was guttural, choked by the same multicolored substance that dripped from her face and fingers. She returned her gaze to the creatures on the hill. "…take care of my babies."
An hour had passed since the cat ate his finger.
Toben had spent that time debating whether to sit on the rock or remain by the tree. He was often criticized for 'just standing there', but on this occasion making others nervous might have worked in his favor. After all, without his index finger the option to poke a belly was diminished, as was the option to scratch his head at this whole dilemma.
Finally, he took a seat. Across from the rock, Hobbers gave a happy squeak while tied to the tree by Toben's cloak. The suspended cat was as large as he was orange, and as content as he was large. He cycled his paws while beetles roamed his fur and butterflies alighted on his nose. The ginger was in his element: making friends and earning attention.
So began the stand-off. Toben's eye-sockets were pools of musty darkness, tapering tear-like to a rictus grimace. They lent him the look of a bureaucrat bearing tragic news. The only sound was from the leaves that danced through the gaps of his ribs and pooled in his hip bones.
He didn't like being without his cloak. He also didn't like being without his finger. A skeleton has few possessions in this world.
The cat gave another squeak. Squirrels were yelling at him to move along, and Hobbers might have obliged had he not been bound so expertly by the cloak. Tight around his belly, taut black against prosperous orange, the constriction was designed to quicken the cat's regurgitation.
"Ride moonward, my dears, for the world, it is not ending," Toben said at the top of the second hour. His jaws barely moved, reinforced as they were with twine – the only part of him, save his cloak, which was more than bone and void. The narrow mouth admitted only troubled sentence fragments. "We're northbound for Amberfly with smeared and slapdash dreamers, to join a generation's victory parade. You'll no sooner halt the moon than stop the coming change. While fools get high the high will fall, though all the streets be paved with riot shields."
Hobbers made a horrible noise, sending bugs and squirrels scattering. It was like an old pickup truck failing to turn over. Indeed, Toben considered helping things along with a slap to the bodywork. But by the time he had gotten up from the rock and crossed to the tree, the cat was openly vomiting.
"That's mine," the skeleton murmured, as if still reciting poetry. He picked up the corroded assortment of bone and knuckle-joints that was once his finger. Then, like a waiter with an insolent wine cork, he mashed the digit against the stump on his right hand.
Hobbers continued to writhe and splutter. More of his forest friends fled.
There was a click before Toben flexed his newly reattached finger. Then, satisfied by its range of motion, he untied the cat. Hobbers plopped to the ground and circled the trunk sadly, licking dew from the grass as if it might freshen his palate. Then the cat watched his skeletal companion get dressed. The tattered robe covered all but Toben's face once the hood was pulled up. From the back he would look like a traveling mystic, and from the front – well, he had been advised to turn his back on anyone he met.
Once cloaked, Toben did just that to Hobbers, and retraced his steps out of the grove. But the ginger cat gamboled after him, meowing all the way. They returned to the scenes of their struggle. The algae-rich pools where Toben had fallen while lunging for Hobbers in the camellia patch. The valley side where towering bougainvillea had snagged Toben with thorn and vine. The sodden slopes where Hobbers had tumbled head-over-haunch in his haste to reach the flooded lowland. Then the boulders split by stands of alder and ash, on which cat and skeleton had hopped like grabby chess pieces.
Hobbers was game for a second round, but with no extremity to bite he could only nip at Toben's cloak. It did nothing to win the skeleton's attention. They climbed the slopes with minimal slapstick, as the setting sun brought purple to the green.
Just before the tree line Toben stopped, and so did Hobbers, wheezing happily as he gazed up at the skeleton. But Toben was looking elsewhere. His cavernous sockets beheld the far highway where valleys flattened out along the Gambler's Coast. As the sun came down it stretched the shadows of a hunched figure, crossing the road from one ditch to the next. A distant scene that might be mistaken for a forager gathering roadkill or a madman chasing portents. The white-shawled creature curled its hands, gripping an imaginary steering wheel as bedraggled hair fell across its features. Then it changed direction, twice in short succession – a sign of mania that ended as it plunged decisively into a bank of moonflowers at the roadside.
Hobbers gave a curious meow, excited to meet a stranger. But Toben pressed on into the foliage. "Stay away from wraiths." It was more like a quoted warning than one of his own.
Deep in the oakwood that crowned the dales, Toben located the campsite. It had been spruced up since his hasty Hobbers-hounding departure. A campfire sent shadows dancing across a clatter of boulders where vegetable sacks were stuffed with leaves and scattered like cushions. Here and there, cardboard boxes spilled rags and leaflets from their sodden insides.
While Hobbers bounded ahead to rub his face on everything, the skeleton looked around for signs of his fellow cat-sitter.
"Oh, Mama told me how to keep a creature sweet. With milk from goats and cows, fruit, vegetables and meat. You cook 'em up, you keep 'em down - salt, acid, fat and heat. And if you ain't the cookin' type just order out them eats!"
"Pickles?" Toben asked.
"Out them eats! Out the meats! Come on, bring out all them eats! If you ain't much for food and such then stay out of my sheets! Out the meats! Out them eats! Come on, bring out all them eats! Cos life ain't glum when you've got some fine flavors to excrete."
"Pickles?" Toben asked.
Toben gave up trying to interrupt, and stood behind Pickles while she continued her presentation. The three-foot possum worked around the campfire, where a pot was set with boiling water and a skillet with bubbling oil. She gripped a bowl with her tail, and sang while tearing skin from a raw chicken. Her striped hoodie was spattered with juices and dusted with spices. She had prepared a dry rub of powders (mostly baking soda) in a separate bowl, where each strip of chicken skin was immersed.
The attendee to her lecture was a long-haired tuxedo cat, posing on the other side of the campfire. This second feline had one paw lifted as it turned its left side, then its right, towards the fire. The exquisite creature was clearly here for the heat and not the meat, but she lent a graceful ear while Pickles rambled.
"Now," the possum explained, "Once the skin dries you have to blanch it. You'll say I'm crazy, but it ensures an even crunch. Meanwhile, we pulverize the meats." She slammed a rock into the bowl of chicken parts – the noise of which erased Toben's third feeble attempt to get her attention. Juices and organs flew around her as she worked. The tuxedo cat gave an indignant growl when some got on her coat, and began grooming all over again.
"We're making balls!" Pickles exclaimed to the cat. "Then we put it back in the skin. Little sacks, like this." She shaped a pouch of dried chicken skin and jiggled it. "Then it goes in the water. Then the grease. It's super-hot, so we seal it up with glue!" She shrieked the word glue as her tail fetched up a tub of dubious-looking paste. She popped the lid and used her other paw to scoop some goop onto her dumplings. "Now stand back, Jess. It's splatter time."
Jess (or Jestaphia, according to her collar) grumbled again and stepped back from the fire, while Pickles stood and raised the bowl above her head. Like a priest in holy rapture, the possum was about to bring the dumplings tumbling into the water pot when Toben made a fourth attempt.
"Pickles?"
The meat went flying, as did Jestaphia, when half of it tumbled into the fire and took the pot and skillet with it. Pickles stretched wide her toothy maw and gave a terrible shriek before dropping, lifelessly, to the ground.
The skeleton waited for the oil and meat debris to stop sizzling. Meanwhile, Hobbers leapt out from behind a box and collided with Jestaphia. His squeak of happy reunion was cut short when Jestaphia whipped around. Hefty though Hobbers was, he was no match for the weight of Jestaphia's bushy tail. One cat whumped on the ground while the other went back to grooming.
"There's a wraith on the highway," Toben announced while drifting between the boxes, examining leaflets. Though shredded he could still decipher their intentions. Local music shows, circus flyers, business cards for handymen and local artists. Deep colors and smudged text. Every time they made camp it was like a rainbow spilled on the soil.
Behind him, Pickles lay unmoving, her eyes closed and her tongue hanging out.
"I think she died here, long ago," Toben continued. "A car crash, I suppose. She looked young. There was sadness there. But when is there not? Leland's Road: it claims people."
Hobbers had now reached Pickles, and was licking the foam and meat glue from her chin.
"I know we have to follow the road," Toben whispered, staring to the distance as sunset painted fire across the treetops. "But so do all things." Then he turned and looked down at the unmoving possum. "Why are you doing that?"
Hobbers leapt clear as Pickles bolted upright. She waved her arms excitedly, paws barely protruding from the baggy sleeves of her hoodie. "Benny! I had an idea while you were gone. Paint me green, head to tail. Ever seen a green possum? No! And neither have they. It's the perfect plan."
"We don't have any green paint."
The possum picked herself up and shuffled around the campfire, scooping handfuls of dirt now clumped with oil and lightly seared chicken balls. "I know what you'll say: we don't have any green paint. But leave that part to me. And don't go improvising. It has to be green. Reckon a passing car will stop when it sees a pink or blue possum lying dead in the road? No! But a green one..." She stuffed a handful of chicken-flavored dirt into her mouth, pondering while she chewed. "They'll take me to a museum, or maybe a sheriff's station. But that's where you come in. You'll need to break me out."
"This doesn't help." Toben answered, before looking down at Jestaphia. The beautiful tuxedo turned her left side towards the skeleton, and made an insistent croak. Toben had no idea what this meant. Jestaphia gave another, more annoyed, croak.
Pickles waved her skillet. "You just don't get the big picture. See – the cats are in the trunk."
Toben stared. "How are the cats in the trunk?"
"You put them in the trunk while the driver's scraping me off the road. Then boom-bang-bingo – we're on our way to the city."
"But how do I get in the vehicle?"
Pickles waved him off while packing up her mess kit. "It's always 'Me! Me! Me!' with you. Running off whenever you want, coming back without warning. Knocking things over. Look at this, Benny – supper is ruined."
Toben lowered his head. "Hobbers ate my fing—"
"Hobbers!" Pickles shouted upon seeing the ginger furball sniffing at her skillet. The bipedal possum bent over and jiggled the cat's cheeks. "There he is! Who wants a chicken ball? Who wants a chumpling? You do! Yes, you do!" She stuffed a handful of meaty dirt into his cheerful, meowing mouth. "Benny, give Jestaphia a dumpling."
Toben did so, and both he and the tuxedo cat were left staring at the strange lump of meat on the ground between them.
"Where's Garret?" Pickles lifted a box with her tail and checked underneath it. "Garret! Here, kitty kitty! Get your cronchy treat."
Toben pointed skyward with his newly attached finger. "He's climbing again."
Overhead, in the dusk-blanched boughs of the canopy, a tabby watched them. Garret's claws were dug into the branches - a stance that exaggerated his wiry, muscular physique. Though the oldest of the cats, he retained the best survival instinct (or street smarts, as Pickles termed it). Garret had not yet come to trust this skeleton and possum who were feeding him.
Pickles tried to amend that situation. She waved a handful of meat at the trees, as if invoking woodland spirits. "Garret! Come get the yum-yums."
Hobbers quietly stole Jestaphia's portion, while Toben continued watching Pickles. "We should go."
Pickles kicked the chicken carcass at her friend. Another stain was added to Toben's robe, along with the cat vomit, rainwater, and cooking oil. "We're not leaving them, Benny. These cats need us. They're lost and trying to get home." She placed Garret's dumpling at the base of the tree he had climbed.
"We don't even know if they're from Amberfly."
"Of course they are!" Pickles scooped Hobbers up and jiggled him as he struggled to swallow Garret's dumpling. "See this collar?" The nametag on the cat's collar glinted in the campfire light. "That's a city collar. You don't get something this nice in the country."
Toben wasn't sure what to make of that. He tried a new angle. "The owner might not want them back."
Pickles almost tripped on her hoodie while dumping water over the campfire. The striped garment was sized for a human adult, which Pickles clearly was not. "You say that because we found them in the middle of nowhere. But sometimes that's where the most cherished things are."
Before Toben could reflect on that – like he reflected on everything the possum said – Pickles scooped up the last dumpling and looked around. "Now, where's Inkh?"
A pair of yellow eyes materialized next to Toben's head. The fourth cat was perched on a low-hanging branch just behind him. Completely black, the kitten blended perfectly with the gathering dark. She gave a small yowl, while scrutiny and disgust brewed in her slow-blinking eyes.
Pickles offered the final dumpling. "Now, Inky Kitty: just try a little piece and see how you feel. It's okay if you don't eat it all. But try your best." She tore off tiny morsels and deposited them into the Inkh-shaped void around the branch.
"We should go," Toben repeated.
"Alright. Take these." Pickles stuffed the uneaten dumplings into the pockets of Toben's robe. "Oh, and some of these." She also stuffed some leaves and shredded pamphlets in there. "Oh, and this rock. That's a nice rock." The possum wriggled her paws through the straps of her rucksack, then picked up a pillowcase in each arm. "Tonight's the night, Benny. You won't be laughing at me anymore."
Toben gave her a puzzled look. As they set off, Hobbers darted after them, as did Garret once assured there was enough room to climb down without getting snatched. The two males darted between the boxes and boulders of the vacated campsite. Meanwhile, the females followed more slowly: Jestaphia sauntering in case a misstep muddied her coat, and Inkh bringing up the rear after casting a knowing glance to the shadowy undergrowth.
Back on the trail, Pickles tittered while hefting the pillowcases. "Oh yes. I'mma wipe that smug look off your face. I know what I saw. It's on the roadside up ahead. You called me crazy. But it's there. And it glows in the dark."
"I never doubted you."
"Don't deny it!" the possum screeched. "I'll prove it soon enough. Just over the next hill. There's a billboard – a fancy one with lightbulbs." She waved a pillowcase around, scattering leaves like glitter. "The Woofle House Diner: five miles ahead." She grinned up at the skeleton, showing an equally impressive collection of bones inside her mouth. "That's what they call a landmark. Last stop before Amberfly city limits."
"Diners don't like me."
"You'll be fine. We'll get disguises from the dumpster. The Woofle House has the best dumpster." Pickles peered up at him, her snout silhouetted in the gloom. "How's your finger, Benny?"
"Corroded by powerful acid," the skeleton moaned. "These cats are not normal."
"You said that when you met me." She bopped him with a pillow. "And look where a little tolerance got you."
"Hmm."
Leaves spilled from the pillowcase as possum and skeleton joined the downhill trail. A crunching carpet was formed for the cats – a procession of fur that ran from bright orange to smothering black. The noise of their paws made music with chirping crickets and croaking frogs.
And at the base of the forest, where moonflowers opened their petals to the night, a Cadillac sat with its lights off, playing dead in the middle of Leland's Road. The creature inside watched as fireflies gravitated towards the skeleton, possum and their four rescues. Light by tiny light, the path of the travelers was tracked.
The driver lowered one hand to the car's radio, smearing dials with an oil-slick of colors. Viscous streaks of purple, pink and green were left on the equipment as the channel skipped and the volume rose. From the white noise a ballad soared, like a proud oak cutting through the clatter of late-night hosts and jingling commercials. An ode to sleepless city nights; a neon fugue of synths and guitars.
"Take care…" The driver's voice was guttural, choked by the same multicolored substance that dripped from her face and fingers. She returned her gaze to the creatures on the hill. "…take care of my babies."