Kitman Versus The Squirrels
A novel. With some squirrels in.
In Which We Look At Our Shoes.
"Hmm," said Kitman, staring into the cash drawer.
I was prepared to say "Hmm?" in return, to prompt him to expand on the hmm-provoking characteristic of the interior of the cash drawer, but he had already removed said hmm-provoking characteristic and was carrying it outside.
It was a small gold oval, which in the sun glittered like iron pyrite.
"Note to self," said Kitman, examining it with his magnifying glass. "Next time, bring the assaying kit along. Oh, this is interesting."
We waited.
"Yes?" we said.
Kitman extended the coin in our general direction. "This appears to be the coin or medal whose image appeared in the diary. On this side, a bas-relief of a squid embracing a whale. On the other —" he flipped it over — "what at first glance looks like a different squid embracing a different whale, but which on closer examination is actually a squidlike sort of pile of spaghetti thing embracing the Los Angeles Public Library building."
"Really?" I said.
Kitman put the coin under the lens again. "It could be the Capitol Records building, I suppose. Or just a general generic cylindrical skyscraper with a spike on the top. There are also some glyphs that could be, well, pretty much anything, really." He hefted the coin in his hand a few times. "Feels a bit light to be gold, but I wouldn't turn down a trunkful of them."
I said, "Then you should add that tower to your list of things to find in Nash Mider's basement."
"What tower?"
"The one surrounded by spaghetti," I explained patiently.
"Oh. Why?"
"Because if you're holding a coin, as opposed to a worthless commemorative issue collector's item or something, then there's a small but definite chance that the tower is a treasury, mint or bank."
"Huh," said Kitman. "Good point. —Your change, sir," he added, and handed the potential coin to Noel.
"Gosh," said Noel. During the momentary pause that followed I developed a sudden vague feeling that Noel was about to say "This is not a coin, it's a (fill-in-the-blank)," and then "I don't know, I just do," when we asked him how he knew, but instead he just bit it.
"It's not gold," he reported.
"Ah well," said Kitman, and turned his attention to the approximately strange new world surrounding us.
Intensely dark pines were not encroaching on the parking lot. They were present, but not encroaching. Nothing was encroaching, as we found when Kitman led us across the asphalt to the razor-sharp demarcation line between the parking lot and the forest around it.
"Interesting," said Kitman, getting down on one knee for a closer look. "Not so much as a blade of grass sprouting in the cracks."
"Hey!" said Noel, who had wandered off a few feet to the right. "I found the path!"
We joined him at the familiar track of rust-marbled marble leading up- and downhill. There was something about the way it curved through the contours of the landscape that gave me a sense of deja-vu. The way it curved past a 7-11, if you want to be picky.
"I'll bet a cookie that way leads up to the house," said Kitman, pointing in the uphill direction. "We could have walked here."
"I'll bet a cookie that there's a large boulder just out of sight that way," I said, pointing in the downhill direction.
Kitman looked at me curiously. "Why?"
"I'll tell you in a hundred yards," I said, and set off down the path.
I was right.
"You were right," said Kitman.
"I know," I said, walking up to the bare granite chunk. "Do you recognize it?"
"Should I? — Oh," he said. "It is, isn't it."
It was missing the brass plaque that read WELCOME TO ABELTON, but was otherwise identical to the one in our world at the Main Street turnoff, which was about a hundred yards down the road from a 7-11, although clearly not the same 7-11, especially since our 7-11 was being converted into a dry-cleaners.
It was now obvious that the hillscape from the boulder on up was essentially an undeveloped version of Abelton Park. From the boulder on down the marble path led through a gently sloping plain of tall grass to the river's edge — or, at least, a river's edge — a mile or so away.
On the other side of the river was...something that we all immediately realized we needed a better look at.
Without even discussing the matter, we set off at a jog down the path.
Minute by minute the riverbank came closer, and what we were seeing became more and more obvious, and Kitman developed a tendency to say "Okay," over and over again.
We staggered to a halt at the river's edge.
We stared at the bizarre vista before us.
"Well," said Kitman, apparently ignoring the bizarre vista before him, "this doesn't match the map in the house."
"Kitman," said I, "how can you ignore the bizarre vista before you?"
"I'm not," he said. "It's just that against a backdrop of the bizarre the merely interesting seems more important. —It is impressive, though, isn't it?"
We stood on the bank and watched the river slide past us in a perfectly normal manner, flowing along calm and brown in a course that matched that of our own Contamiski crook for crook and bend for bend.
We just couldn't see the reason for its normality, in light of the fact that its opposite bank was missing.
On the other side of this river there was no land but rather a dark green sea, the rippling surface of which was a foot higher than the level of the river. We were looking at two distinct bodies of water, each apparently unaware that there was nothing separating them.
"I wonder what it looks like when the tide goes out," said Noel.
"Hmm," said Kitman, or possibly myself.
We watched the sun approach the horizon and then sink gingerly into the sea like a man stepping into a cold bath. A peculiar feeling crept over me, which was this: though it was indeed, and by all means, a bizarre vista — made all the more spectacular by the sunset, which was incidentally occurring in what I was reasonably sure was the east — there didn't seem to be all that much I could do about it, if you know what I mean. I gradually became less aware of the wonder before me and more aware that my socks and shoes were now full of grass seed.
"Seen enough?" said Kitman, shielding his eyes against the light.
"Never," said Noel, "but...yes." I mumbled assent.
"Well, then," said Kitman, "I suppose we should be going."
He pulled out his vaxillator, popped it open and pressed buttons.
Nothing happened.
...
Unfortunately, it was the conventional kind of nothing.
"Um," said Kitman, and pressed more buttons.
"Hm," said Kitman, and pressed more buttons.
"What?" said I, during the complete silence that followed.
Kitman coughed. "It seems I, ah, left the display running. Color TFT. Drinks power. Battery's dead. —Well, no matter. Give me your spare."
I coughed. "I, uh, left it in the dining room," I said. "In my backpack."
Kitman did not give me the eyebrow raised and fixed. "Ah," he said. "Well. In that case — back to the 7-11. They're bound to have double A batteries. Let's get a move on."
We got a move on. Back up the path we charged, finding the gently slope to be not quite so gentle when going uphill, the sun sinking redly behind us, shadows lengthening visibly as we progressed. We reached the boulder just as day ended and twilight began. It lasted about fifteen seconds. Night flowed overhead, thick and black and starlit.
"Note to self," said Kitman, "file a complaint regarding nonlinear days."
He pulled an LED flashlight out of his backpack and flicked it on. In its cold blue glare the leaves of grass and low, stubby plants stood out too sharply, and the marble blocks of the path took on the appearance of chunks of ice — a similarity with added realism due to the growing chill in the air. "Addendum," said Kitman. "Remember to fetch the ten million candlepower jobbie from the third floor."
We moved on. As we had worked our way uphill the rush and hiss of the ocean and the river had faded into and mixed with the sound of wind in the grass and trees, a restrained sussurus, but now I noticed a sound I couldn't immediately place, a whispery paper-on-paper sound...the sound of my own breathing, I discovered, when I stopped it to listen.
And then there was another sound, a sad, flutelike sound from somewhere to our right:
Voon.
"Oh," said Kitman, "great."
The sound was echoed from somewhere to our left.
"Run," suggested Kitman, and we did.
Very fast.
In the dark.
Presumably this was because Kitman realized that running with a flashlight is a terrific way to attract attention to yourself, but he didn't take time out to explain why he'd turned it off.
Up and up we went, tripping over things we couldn't see, as eerie cries from all sides drew closer and closer.
"Stop!" hissed Kitman.
We skidded to a stop.
"What?" I said.
"We went too far!"
"Huh?" But then I turned around and saw he was right — in the dim starlight, a dozen yards behind us, was the parking lot.
And the 7-11.
And all its lights were out.
"That's not good," said I.
"It's worse," said Kitman. "Look."
We looked.
Under the overhang of the store, by the entrance...something gleamed, momentarily, wetly, in the darkness. Several somethings, small, moving things.
On the cold wind I caught a momentary scent of ammonia; ammonia, and magnolia blossoms gone to rot.
"Okay," said Kitman. "This is going to be tricky."
"You have a plan?" I asked.
"No."
"Ah."
We stood there as silently as possible.
Not silently enough, because the gleaming shadows were moving away from the store and — however slowly and tentatively — directly towards us.
They were walking...
Some things shouldn't walk.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do," said Kitman. "Noel?"
Silence.
"Noel?" said Kitman. I looked around. There was no sign of him. I suddenly remembered that he had very short legs.
"Noel?"
Small, shiny things. Two, three, four, coming closer...
Something tugged at my pant leg.
I couldn't move.
It tugged again. I still couldn't move.
It bit me, and it was a duck.
"Agh!" I said.
"Shh!" said Noel, and pushed something into my hands.
It was a vaxillator.
"Kitman!" I said, and passed it to him faster than I would have thought possible. In keeping with his character he didn't take time out for the "Where did you get that?" questions. He just pushed buttons.
To my considerable relief, nothing happened.
I didn't even say anything about close calls. I just pulled my handkerchief out of my pocket (along with a half pound of grass seed, which spilled all over the rug) and mopped my forehead, staring down in admiration at Noel.
"I," said Noel, blinking in the sudden Abelton Park sunlight, "...um."
"No, no," said Kitman, holding up a forestalling hand, "let me work this one out. — You were trailing behind and saw us run past the parking lot."
"Yes," said Noel.
"You were going to call our attention to this," said Kitman, getting down on hands and knees and peering under his bed, "but were afraid it would draw unwelcome attention."
"Yes," said Noel. He tugged at his jacket and even more grass seed spilled onto the rug.
Kitman reached under the bed and pulled out a Dustbuster. "You ran into the parking lot and saw disturbing things in front of the store."
"Yes," said Noel, looking down at the rug. He was missing a flip-flop.
"You looked around wildly," said Kitman. He thumbed his vacuum and it made a noise like a clouded leopard with a particularly phlegmy chest cold. "You saw, in the otherwise consistent darkness in the parking lot, a speckle or twinkle."
"Yes," said Noel.
Kitman opened the Dustbuster and looked into its dirt trap with an expression of dismay, followed by shock and increasing revulsion. He closed it with a shudder. "You realized," he said, "that you were looking at the pinhole wormhole through which you had come from the cellar, still open after all this time."
"Yes," said Noel.
Kitman dropped the Dustbuster into the trash. "You ran over to it, crossed back to the cellar — which you found to be still sunlit, thus explaining the speckle or twinkle — ran upstairs, found the backpack and the vaxillator, and the rest is history."
"Yes," said Noel. "That was very good!"
Kitman nodded modestly, and then pulled the Dustbuster out of the trash, double-plastic-bagged it and returned it to the trash.
"You left out the part where he bit me," I said, and Kitman frowned in surprise.
"Did you bite him, Noel?"
Noel nodded unhappily.
Kitman turned to me. "Shame on you, Williams!" he said. "Did he not tug on your pant leg?"
I felt obliged to admit it. "Um...well —"
"Surely not twice?" said Kitman.
"Well, yes — look, I didn't say I minded being bitten..."
"Tch," said Kitman. "Noel, you followed my plan to the letter without even knowing what it was, and you shall have ice cream and cake."
"Really?" said Noel.
"Yes. Williams?" said Kitman. "Give him ice cream and cake. I'm running out to Costco to see what they've got in the way of hand-vacs. And don't take off your shoes in here. —What size flip-flops do you take, by the way?"
