Colony
by SpunSilk
Part Six: Familiar
In ancient times cats were worshipped as gods;
they have not forgotten this.
–– Terry Pratchett
The next morning when I woke, the cat sat on the wide sill staring out the window, looking out on a sunny morning. I pulled myself unwillingly out of the warm bed and unlatched the pane. "Get out, then," I said gruffly, "and good riddance!" He hopped nimbly out, then, looking back at me for a few beats, he slipped silently into the underbrush near the cabin entrance. I had to suppress a smile. You're welcome I thought.
Each morning before I walked, I sat inside the bizarre tennis-ball triangle for what I had come to think of as my check-up. There was still amazingly little change. The haze seemed to have stopped expanding. Maybe Colony was a chronic condition in a human aura! Maybe they couldn't even digest human aura energy. Maybe I could live out normal life-span...
But an isolated life-span, out here in the sticks. What kind of life was that?! I would never be willing to chance going back, never totally sure of how Colony's life-cycle would play out in humans. Maybe it would flare in a year's time. Maybe in ten. Potentially toxic to human life, I was a prisoner here – whether Colony killed me or didn't. Out-in-the-open, sure, but a prisoner none the less.
When I returned from the walk that morning, I found a mouse outside the cabin. I did a double-take, but it was dead. What an odd place for it to die, out here in the open. Picking it up by the tail, I flung it into the undergrowth.
My novel progressed in a lively manner, the clean ream of paper slowly feeding the hungry roller. I must say, in-spite of what Vincenzo says, I enjoy typing on the manual. With a typewriter the paper waits, clean and white, for you to have your way with it. Not like on a computer screen where the dang cursor sits there, blinking – tapping its foot at you – waiting for you to complete a thought. Personal opinion here: a book draft back in the day used to be something real. You could drop it on your toe and it would hurt. That was nice.
A few times while I typed, the cat would appear and watch through the window. I ignored him.
One day I walked out of the cabin, ready to walk the morning away again, and was surprised to find a dead songbird – quite near the spot the mouse had died. I puzzled. Odd. Of course with my background, I know there are a lot more possible explanations for phenomena than the run-of-the-mill explanations most people come up with. But even I couldn't figure a force that would go around localizing the death of wild things so close to where I lay asleep and not be tempted to kill the human too. I searched the area in front of the cabin, but found nothing amiss. I went back into the cabin, found my Mojo bag in my satchel, and for the case of just-in-case, slipped it over my head. Outside, I flung the tiny body into the underbrush.
My walks had taken me out to as far as a few hours from my camp, each day I explored a bit farther. The country "roads" petered out very close to the cabin. Out here, paths were the only passage through the woods, I assumed made by some sort of animal. As I walked, I ran the situation over in my head. I still felt fine. Maybe the lack of serious change in the turquoise haze meant more than just slow progression being normal in a human aura, maybe the damn things were starving out on me even now! Maybe the turquoise haze would start regressing –
Suddenly I stopped walking. A red apple hung in my path. The disconnect of seeing something so familiar in all this wild took a second to make sense. I looked up into the thick canopy of the woods over my head and saw a large scattering of apples, round and red. An apple tree... out here? Tempted like Adam himself, I slowly reached out and plucked it, and examined it from all sides before biting into it tentatively. It was small but sweet and juicy and fresh. I don't think I'd ever tasted one better. Light-hearted for the first time since I arrived, I nimbly gather a number from the lower branches and filled the pockets of my suit-coat. The tree was gnarled and unkept, but definitely an apple tree. What was it doing out here in the uncivilized woods?
Within the dense underbrush I spotted another apple tree, then beyond that, another. I forced my through the green to discover a discarded orchard of apple trees, all planted in rows and columns. It dawned on me.
Humans had lived here.
Other trees had grown up in between the rows, undergrowth had all but completely obscured the grid of it, but it was here. Civilization! Feeling like a youngster at Monkey Skull Creek all over again, I began exploring, pushing through the brush and undergrowth. My efforts were rewarded. The first structure I found was a stone building, roof now absent – covered in vines with thorns so malicious, I chose to let them be, and passed it by unentered.
A good distance beyond that, and hiding between new growth of wild trees, lay the remains of another building – this one not so large – surrounded by a tall heap of the same malicious thorns. Nasty things, like none other I'd seen. Sharp and plentiful, these thorns bit with a painful prick and seemed to be able entangle my clothing with no expended effort if I brushed too close. I learned quickly not to mess with it.
As the sun threatened to set, I returned to the cabin with heavy pockets and a light spirit. Tomorrow I would pack food and tools and again spend the day here exploring the structures – there may be more to find. I hadn't really questioned it before: what was my cabin doing this far out in the wilderness? And by the way, what was that barn cat doing out here so far from civilization? He obviously wasn't completely feral.
Speak of the devil... As I approached the cabin, I was surprised to see the grey and brown cat approach the cabin door from the opposite direction. In his mouth hung a limp good-sized rabbit. Our eyes met. We stared each other down for a while, then he lay the rabbit on the ground, in the same place as the mouse and the bird, and looked at me cooly, sitting down and wrapping his tail gracefully around his feet.
"Huh." I responded. I narrowed my eyes as I remembered my off-hand 'free-loader' comment.
The cat stared at me without blinking.
That night we dined on roast rabbit and apples using one of the fire irons as a spit, and I have to say I don't think I'd tasted any better meat ever. I eyed him cautiously as he gnawed happily at a small piece of beef jerky after dinner. Conversation was sparse to non-existent, which suited both of us just fine. As the crickets started their scheduled concert, he stretched and twisted (beyond anything reasonable for any creature with a spine) and with a yawn and a glance at me, curled up on the wool rug in front of the fire as if he belonged there, and fell asleep. I watch him and pondered. The pleasant memory of the good meal had left me open to more soft-headedness.
I let him stay.