Catboy - Eric Walters [2]
We threaded our way around the cars. It was pretty cool, but hadn’t I seen an episode of CSI where they found a body in a junkyard? If alleys were scary, this place was even more scary.
The junkyard was big and filled with cars. Some were up on cinder blocks, missing wheels, while others were metal skeletons with practically everything stripped off. There were piles of cars, one on top of the other, some of them flattened to look more like metal pancakes than vehicles, while others were precariously balanced. It looked like they would all tumble over if I sneezed. I was going to avoid sneezing.
The ground, except for a few muddy patches, was covered with crushed red brick and crunched loudly under our feet.
“Aren’t the owners worried about somebody stealing something?” I asked.
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Simon said. He stopped and unzipped his pack. “Help me put an engine in my bag.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’ll have to be a small one. Do you see a Mini or a VW Bug?”
“Funny. Are you saying nothing here is small enough to steal?”
“Nothing back here,” he said. “They keep things like batteries and car radios up at the front of the yard. That’s where the security guards are.”
“They have security guards?” I asked, looking around anxiously.
“They don’t come back here…hardly ever.”
Reassuring and not reassuring all in the same sentence.
“Look, Taylor, if they chase us, just run,” he added.
Even less reassuring.
“I figure if you can’t outrun a security guard, you deserve to be caught,” he said.
“Funny, I always thought it was best not to do anything that would cause a security guard to chase you.”
A sudden movement in the shadows caught my eye. I jumped and bumped into a car.
“It’s just a cat,” Simon said.
A large black cat ran across our path and disappeared among the wrecks.
Simon laughed. “You’re afraid of cats?”
“I’m not. It just startled me. I like cats. I had a cat.”
“At your old place?”
“Yeah, we had to put him to sleep a year ago.”
“Put to sleep? What does that mean? Did you sing him a lullaby and put little Hello Kitty jammies on him?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Stupid? Me? I wasn’t the one who jumped when he saw a cat. What does putting it to sleep mean?”
“My cat Blinky—”
“Now that’s a stupid name for a cat.”
“I named him when I was two,” I said. “What do you expect?”
“Something better than Blinky.”
“Anyway, Blinky was getting old and he was sick and in pain, so we had to bring him to the veterinarian. The vet gave him a needle so he could…you know.”
“So you had him killed.”
“We had no choice!” I said. “He was in a lot of pain.”
It had been almost a year, but I still felt bad about it. I could feel tears starting to form. Being scared by a cat wasn’t nearly as bad as having Simon see me cry over one. I turned and started to walk away. Simon quickly caught up.
“I don’t like cats,” he said. “They’re dirty.”
“They’re not dirty,” I said, defending Blinky and all of catkind. “They wash themselves all the time.”
“They wash themselves with their tongue,” he said and made a face like he was grossed out. “But if you love cats, then this is the place to be. There are dozens and dozens of them here. I’ll show you.”
My desire to get out of the junkyard wasn’t as strong as my curiosity. Why would there be dozens of cats here? Simon changed directions, and I trailed behind him as he wove through the rows of wrecks. Were we headed toward the front of the yard?
“There are some,” he said.
Sitting among the wrecks were four cats. One was on the hood of a car, sleeping in the sun. The others were on the ground, just sitting there. The ones that were awake turned toward us. They had