In the Belly of the Beast

43

Abby was exhausted. They had taken the boy to the hospital to be checked out. It turned out he was a foster child, and the home that burned had been his foster home.

Nothing left there but charred ruins.

Sam, the boy's name according to social services, was to be shuffled back into the system and would be situated into a new foster home.

Poor kid. She felt sorry for him. She really did.

She had visited him in the hospital that night. The hospital had told her that he'd be staying for a few days to recover from smoke inhalation.

She remembered walking into the room. The bed looked so big, the child so small.

She brushed his hair and he opened his eyes to look at her. He said nothing, hardly acknowledging her presence.

She had tried to connect, but he'd merely stared at her with eyes that were. . .what?

Abby couldn't describe what she had felt when she looked into them. Strange, she thought. Looking into the eyes of a child who had made her feel creepy.

This was nonsense, she told herself. She was as exhausted and strung out as the little boy she'd just visited.

She was reading too much into it, she thought. He was just a kid who'd been through hell.

Damned though, if they weren't the strangest eyes.

A furry body swished by her legs.

"Kat," she said. "Guess you want your dinner, huh Bud?"

A low purr answered her question. She'd stopped by the market on the way home from the hospital. She fixed the cat's dinner and her own as well. After she had eaten, she surfed the channel for an old black-and-white movie.

Kat nuzzled up beside her.

"I swear", she said to the animal, "If you aren't the best smelling cat I've ever smelled. How do you do it, huh? You got your own special cologne?"

She petted the cat behind the ears, and its light, musky scent filled her nostrils. It revved its purring motor up a notch to tell her she was rubbing in just the right spot.