Feral by Brian Knight Page A

green vinyl couch resting against the far wall.   The same army surplus cot folded in the corner next to it.   Two antique beanbags flanked a crazily tilted end table, one of the legs missing. Some considerate young soul had donated a stack of school textbooks to hold that corner up.   The beanbags were ruined; most of the stuffing chewed out and spread across the floor like white mouse shit.
    An old tape deck sat on the floor next to an ancient black-and-white television, its cord chewed through by the same absent rodents.   The television’s power cord was in better shape.   The rubber was chewed in a few spots but seemed intact.   If the picture tube hadn’t blown it would probably still work.
    All of this stuff, down to the abandoned textbooks, was sacred in its own way.   Each brought here and left in trust to the next generation of kids who would make this place theirs.   The rest of the house, ground floor, upstairs, and even the attic, she supposed, had been looted and trashed, but the cellar was a sacred place.
    She wondered when this place had last been used.   Had this generation of kids forgotten about it, or simply abandoned it for a better place?
    Shannon walked to the couch, ducking under the ceiling’s low-hanging bulb, and took a seat on the old couch.   Dust puffed up around her, making her cough.   Still looking around dreamily, Charity sat down next to her.
    â€œIt’s kind of like a clubhouse, isn’t it?”
    â€œYes, kind of.”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be so bad if someone cleaned it,” Charity said, and Shannon accepted the comment for what it was.   Charity knew the place was special to her, and was trying to accept it in that spirit.
    â€œDo you want to tell me about it?”
    â€œAbout what?” Shannon asked, though she knew what the girl was talking about.
    â€œWhy you came here.”
    â€œI can’t,” she said.
    Instead they sat next to each other, close enough to feel each other’s body heat in the cool cellar.   It didn’t take long for Charity to fall asleep again, and when the nightmares started, Shannon held her close and calmed her.
    Shannon, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep.   On top of the horrors of the night, the restless memories of the monster that drove her into the cellar kept her awake.   Too many memories for one night, again making her wonder why the big people of the world too often forced the small ones to grow old before their time.
    When she did finally sleep, those dusty memories followed her down.
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    S hannon was fourteen when her mom died.   It was nothing prolonged or dramatic, she simply got too drunk one night, and like Jared’s rock and roll hero, Bon Scott, choked to death on her own vomit while she was passed out.   Barely a month later, her father, Ferris Cruse, Jr., moved her stuff into his room.
    He said it was for her own good, they couldn’t afford to get a house where she had her own room, and it wasn’t proper for her and Jared to be sharing a room at their ages.   She fought the move.   She was honestly shocked that he would think such a thing might happen—they were brother and sister for Christ’s sake.   As was typical for him, her father took the passive-aggressive road.
    â€œFine,” he said. “Sleep on the couch then, but your bed and dresser stay in here.”   The next thing he said blew her away completely.   “People will start talking you know, about you and Jared.   It ain’t proper for you two to be sleeping together.”
    Her retort, an observation on the properness of a father and daughter her age sleeping in the same room, never left her mouth.   He didn’t say ‘sleeping in the same room,’ he said ‘sleeping together.’   That phrase said more to her than the mere sum of his beer-scented words.   He honestly thought they were sleeping