Chapter 11

    There was a seven eyed kitten. Hunter counted its eyes three times. It was howling at him from the desk. Somehow this odd creature crept up on Hunter while he was inspecting Tommy’s backpack in Alex’s room. The eyes seemed confused by one another and kept looking at each other or in opposite directions.

    Hunter had been rummaging through Tommy’s backpack, finding nothing but coloring books, toys, and other things a preschooler would carry with them when the kitten appeared. The seven-eyed kitten was harmless. It swung its little paw at Hunter in an effort to get him to play and then sauntered back to the corner of the desk where it curled up and closed its many eyes. Hunter touched the kitten just to make sure it was real. It was. Two or three of its eyes popped open to blink at him when he ran a hesitant finger over its fur, but they all closed again when Hunter moved his hand away.

    After inspecting the backpack and kitten, Hunter started searching the room. It was a typical teenage room with movie and team posters on the wall. Alex loved basketball. Hunter knew that. She was hoping to play at the university level some day. She knew she’d never be professional, but if she could get a scholarship for a couple of years, it would really help.

    There were other odd things in Alex’s room. Books with multiple layers of words on their pages. A vase of blue roses. Odds and ends that seemed to have been collected from outdoors. A small metal toy car aged and weathered. It looked like it had been out in the mud for years. A bracelet made of neon plastic that would have been a treasure in the 80s. 

    There were also more kittens. Deformed and hiding in the various corners of the room. Hunter started gathering them up. He put them on the desk with the seven-eyed kitten. There were kittens with three legs or five legs. Some had one eye or no eyes, a few had two. Some had more ears and others had fewer ears. Multiple tails or no tails. When Hunter had gathered up all of the kittens he could find, he noticed there were eight of them and exactly enough body parts for eight kittens. It was just an uneven distribution of those parts that made these kittens so eerie.

    “What are you doing?”

    Hunter looked up. Alex was standing by him.

    “Where’d you get these kittens?” He asked her.

    “Tanya said I could have them,” Alex said.

    “Tanya? The missing woman? How do you know her? When did she give you kittens? Why do you have her kid’s backpack?”

    Hunter hadn’t meant to ask all of the questions at once, but he couldn’t help himself.

    “She needed help with the kittens, so she asked me. She left the backpack here,” Alex said.

    “How do you know her?” Hunter asked again.

    “She works with the sick animals,” Alex said. “Sometimes I help with the kittens.”

    “When’s the last time you saw her?”

    “I don’t know. She brought the kittens here.”

    Alex had always liked animals and had volunteered for various things in the past. Hunter could see her taking in deformed kittens to help the shelter. He tried to remember if she had mentioned it before. It seemed familiar, but he couldn’t really place the conversation.

    “Honey,” Hunter said. “Were the kittens always like this?”

    He didn’t know why he asked it. How else would the kittens have been before arriving here?

    “I don’t know,” Alex said. She seemed like she didn’t know how to answer that question. It was an strange question after all. 

    “What about the backpack?” Hunter asked.

    “She left it here,” Alex said. “I think she forgot.”

    “Was she in a hurry when she left?”

    “I don’t know. Maybe.”

    “Do you have food and water for the kittens? A litter box?” Hunter asked.

    Alex pointed under the desk and there it all was. Hunter wondered how he failed to notice it before.

    “Okay,” Hunter said. “If you need help with them, let me know.”

    Alex shrugged and Hunter left her room. As he closed the door behind him, he saw that she was placing all of the kittens carefully onto the bed.

    “I need to get some sleep,” Hunter said to himself.

    He looked at his watch and couldn’t quite make out the time. It was dark out and he was exhausted. He made his way to his room, but stopped and turned back. He went and grabbed the old yearbook at the end of the hall. There had to be a reason why that yearbook was in his truck when all of the other yearbooks were in his office at the sheriff station.

    Hunter put the book down on his bed once he entered his room, changed into his pajamas and brushed his teeth, before making one last lap around the house to make sure all of the doors and windows were locked. He then went back upstairs and knocked on the door to Alex’s room.

    “What are you doing?” She asked.

    “I’m going to bed,” Hunter said. “I just wanted to say good night. I love you, kiddo.”

    Hunter hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Alex didn’t want to let go.

    “You okay?” He asked.

    “Are you really going to sleep?” She asked.

    “Yeah, I’m exhausted. I need to be able to think clearly in the morning. There’s a lot going on right now.”

    “Okay,” Alex said. She released her grip on him.

    “Are you sure you’re okay?”

    “Yeah.”

    Hunter gave her a quick second hug and kiss on the head.

    “If you need anything, you come get me,” he said.

    Alex nodded and went back into her room, picking up a kitten that was trying to escape as she closed the door.

    Hunter went to his room and left the door cracked just a little. He didn’t know why, but it felt better having the door cracked than closed.

    Hunter settled into bed and, despite his eyes aching and his body begging for sleep, started paging through the yearbook. It was a sea of unfamiliar faces. He must have dozed off when he woke up, the lights were off and Alex was curled up next to him.

    As gently as he could, Hunter reached for the spare blanket and covered her with it. As he was covering Alex, he realized that the yearbook he had been holding was gone. He started patting around on the bed for it to see if he could find where it fell.

    “It’s on the dresser,” Alex said. She must have woken up and felt him moving around.

    “Thanks,” Hunter said. He dropped back down onto his pillow.

    “The girl in the book,” Alex said. “She was in the garden. There was something wrong with her.”