Pod by Stephen Wallenfels Read Free Book Online

I hate it when that happens. My stomach growls, which reminds me I didn’t have dinner. That’s easy to fix. One bite of bologna. One nibble of cheese. A sip of beer. There, dinner is done. I close my eyes again. The silence and the dark surround me.
    But not for long. There it is again—that squeak.
    It’s definitely coming from inside the car, and close. I hold my breath and wait. I hear it—the back compartment. I scramble out of my sleeping bag and fold down one of the seats. The smell is so bad my eyes water. But the sound is louder. I know what it has to be. My heart pounds as I fumble in my pack for the flashlight pen. I find it, switch it on, aim the small beam into the shadows.
    It’s a kitten in a small wire cage.
    The cage is on its side with a pink towel covering the bottom edge. I open the door and lift her out. She’s the size of a fuzzy softball, big gray eyes ringed with dried goop, yellow hair the same color as mine. She smells like cat pee. There are two empty dishes in her cage. One has
Cassie
written with red crayon on the side. I think back to the first day, when the boy tried to run to the SUV but his mother wouldn’t let him. He screamed like he forgot something important. Now I know what that something was.
    “Hello, Cassie,” I say.
    The sound startles me. It’s the first words I’ve spoken since Mom left. It must have startled Cassie too because she starts mewing like crazy. An alarm goes off in my brain, but I don’t care. I hold her close to my chest and stroke her fur. She settles down.
    “Let’s get you cleaned up,” I whisper. “You stink worse than me.”
    I carry her back to my couch bed, spill a few drops of water on the towel, and wipe her down. Then I give her a couple of sips of my beer. She laps it up and looks around for more.
    I say, “Guess that means you’re hungry, too.”
    I tear off a sliver of bologna. She gobbles it down like it was a piece of steak.
    The alarm goes off in my head again. As much as I’d like to keep her, I have to be smart. Like Mom would say, who needs another mouth to feed? I give her one more sip of beer. I promise to let her go first thing tomorrow. Right now she needs some company.
    “You’re a very lucky kitty,” I whisper.
    We burrow into the warmth of my sleeping bag. Beneath it all I hear the buzz of the security light. For a moment I wonder how dark it would be without the lights. No darker than my closet at home, that’s for sure.
    Then Cassie starts to purr. For once I’m not thinking about Hoodie with his knife, the aliens, or the long, dark smear. Or even Mom. Cassie feels good against my skin.
    That’s what I’m thinking when I fall asleep.

DAY 6: PROSSER, WASHINGTON

    Click
     
    It’s official. The man is crazy.
    First the laundry, now this. We’re filling containers with water. Jugs, mugs, bottles, and cans are lined up in neat rows on the kitchen counter. He’s upstairs filling the bathtub. I’m in the kitchen, filling—I can’t believe this—Ziploc freezer bags. They look like supersized versions of those cheesy prizes you win on the midways at county fairs, only without the goldfish that die three days later.
    This storm of insanity was triggered this morning when the power went off. It stayed off for about fifteen minutes, then came back on. By that time Dad had already mobilized the water brigade. I tried reasoning with him, that it was total overkill, but he didn’t buy my argument.
    I said, “Haven’t you been listening? It’s the End of Days.”
    He said, “It’s the end of us wasting our resources.”
    I said, “But Megaphone Man says we should embrace the Lord and go to the light.”
    He said, “Embrace this,” and handed me the box of Ziplocs. “If you think of anything else to fill, fill it.” I thought of something, but decided not to say it.
    So here I am, sealing little plastic bags. Fortunately the box had only ten left. I’m thinking they’d make excellent ammunition for when the