A Great Escape: Short Stories for Travelers

CATS

Abby Holton stared out the kitchen window at the nouveau Victorian house across the street. She thought, Those cats are still there. "Richie, Jamie—let's go—you'll be late for school. Richie, put Mandy in the house, she's in her favorite spot, sprawled on top of my BMW."

"Coming mom."

They dashed out the side door, hopped into the car, and drove off.

"I want you kids to call daddy as soon as you get on the school bus on your way home. He'll meet you at the bus stop. If you walk anywhere near those cats, they'll scoop you up and eat you in one bite."

Indeed, as unusual as it sounds, the cats, sometimes called mountain lions or puma, had moved into the neighborhood of South Werrington when the Lexington Coat Factory closed and there was a mass exit of families that had lost jobs.

Abby activated her cell, scrolled down the frequently called numbers, and then punched "call".

"Howard, the children will cell you when they arrive at the bus stop. I don't want them walking anywhere near our street."

"I'll pick them up as soon as I hear from them. Hey, old Mrs. Havers is still in her home. I saw her out on her front porch feeding a bevy of ten cats—the domestic kind, that is."

Continuing in her sardonic tone, Abby said, "She'll be there forever . . . she's got her dead husband's pension and about 120 pussy cats to keep her company"

"It's surprising the city hasn't condemned her house and taken all the creatures to the pound."

"It's too late now—they don't want to drive away any more home owners."

"Oh Abby, do you think we should throw in the towel and take an apartment in Boston?"

"Howard, if you weren't so dead set on living in South Werrington close to your parents, we wouldn't be in this mess. And thanks to you, with your consulting gig, we've moved all over this country in the last five years; at last count, we've lived in six cities in five years. And the question with regards to taking an apartment is now a dead issue. Our $400,000 home is worth exactly $150,000 and we still owe $396,000 on it—that's $4000 a month for thirty years, if you don't recall the fact. We're barely making our payments now—we just can't handle another obligation."

"If they could just make the city safe from the animals and marauding gangs until people move back into the neighborhood, we'd be alright. I think it's only a matter of time before the city lures other companies into the area to create jobs. And when Bostonians discovery what a find Werrington is, they'll gobble up the empty homes and prices will rise. Give it two years and we'll be right back where we were."

"Tomorrow I'm going to stop by city hall and ask the mayor to clean out those mountain lions. If he won't act, I'm going to have my firm file a lawsuit against them for the value of our home. I might even make it a class action suit for all the residents and all the money they've lost."

"Be careful my love, we don't need to make the city our enemy along with everything else that's going on."

"I'm serious Howard, we've complained a dozen times and they've done nothing. Our lives and especially those of our children are at stake."

"Alright, if you think you can swing it."

"I've got to swing it. We're one of the few families in the neighborhood that wasn't dependent on Lexington—and now we're the ones paying the price."

That night the family sat in the living room eating dinner in front of the TV. Howard said, "One nice thing about this empty neighborhood is it's so quiet. I'm used to hearing motorcycles and assorted cars making runs to the market until eleven, twelve o'clock at night, sometimes all night long."