Kate jolted awake, looking around in alarm, noticing what woke her up was just the crude school bell. She stretched and fought back a yawn, students filing past her.
"Morning bells are ringing, Frere Jacque," a tall, lanky boy said as he rapped his knuckles on her desk. "Can't be nodding off in class, now, can we?" He grinned sarcastically, and walked out the door.
"Go to hell, Scott," Kate muttered. She hoisted her book bag over one shoulder, and looked at the time.
11:40, she thought. Slept through French... Good thing Mr. Barge is clueless. She hurried out the door, heading for the cafeteria.
Inside, she queued up in the lunch line, grabbing a tray.
"What do we have today...?" she muttered to herself, not really wanting to know the answer, due to its possibility of being toxic. She gazed across the bar-like line at the toadlike lunch lady, who seemed not to notice.
"Is the anything edible?" Kate directed the question at the lunch lady, who grunted and readjusted her hair net. "You see, I'm a human," she continued. "I need to eat meat that's brown and veggies that aren't."
The lunch lady glared.
"Maybe just a PB and J... Just to be on the safe side," Kate amended, grabbing a wrapped sandwich and a water bottle, and paying the two dollars for the both of them.
She sat down at a nearby lunch table, dropped her bag at her feet and turned to the girl next to her.
"Honestly, Layna, I think this food is a clever plot to exterminate the school of all lunch-purchasing students." The girl looked at Kate, analyzing her.
"Ah," she answered. "But what's the motif?"
"I'll figure it out." Kate poked her sandwich.
"What is it today, anyway?"
"Mystery meat," Kate smiled wryly.
"A true puzzler indeed! I suggest rabbit's feet as the main ingredient."
"But those are good luck. This is obviously the devil's work, Elena."
"You'll need the luck to survive that culinary suicide."
"S'why I got something safe," Kate yawned, peeking under the topmost slice on bread on her sandwich. "No mold today," she commented.
"You know it's a good day when there's no mold on your delicious, nutricious, lunch." She paused. "But then again, you use mold to make penicillin. Good stuff."
"Hah. Hah."
Kate took a hesitant bite, making sure her long dirty blonde hair didn't get in the way out the peanut butter as Elena pulled a cherry coke out of her lunch bag, and opened it with a crack.
"So I heard you snoozed in French?" Elena changed the subject, noting Kate yawn again. "Do tell me all about it. Open zee brain to zee zychologist."
"Well, doc, I got a real problem. It seems my alarm clock is interrupting my sleep pattern."
"I zee. Tell me more."
"Well, then I gotta get dressed, and head for physical education. At five in the morning, nonetheless!"
"Hmm... Zee doctor prescribes... To stop being such a pansy and suck it up," Elena joked.
"Me, the pansy! Of all the ludicrous things to say, Miss I'm-in-love-with-Fe"
"Shut up!" Elena laughed. "That's a secret, dumbass."
"What? I wasn't going to say anything."
"Right..."
-- -- -- --
Almost a week passed with nothing of interest. The next Monday, Kate got up a little differently.
"I overslept!" Kate screamed at no one, jumping out of bed an almost landing on her poor dog, Ryan. She yelped as the clock flashed she had fifteen minutes to be out the door, and the scrambled for clean clothes.
She ran downstairs in her mis-matched outfit, shoving a frozen waffle between her teeth and tugging on a jacket before rushing out the door, five minutes past five.
It was still pitch-black as she jogged past the sleeping houses two streets and turned left.
The road she was on was a quicker path to her school, but she only used it if she was in a hurry, because it gave her the creeps.
The road was about a half-mile long, with tall trees on her right, and a small creek about thirty feet to her left, leaving space for a car to pass if need be. Beyond the creek was an abandoned lot, stretching about two football fields across, and one football field wide. She didn't know what lay past the trees on her left, because they were fairly thick and probably become and orchard at some point or another.
Kate bustled along, trying to get to the next street quickly. She pulled out her mp3 player, and stuck an earbud in, trying to get her mind off of her walk. She hit shuffle, and "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down came on, and she set her pace to slightly faster than the beat.
She started to get comfortable, and as she stepped on a crunchy leaf, she saw the beginnings of light on the ground, signifying headlights. Kate liked it when a car went by, she didn't feel so alone on the deserted street with the warm headlights on her.
She yawned and closed her eyes briefly, and in that split-second, something large rammed into a tree a few paces in front of her, shattering the trunk and raining own twigs, leaves, and small branches. She froze, looking for a sign or what could've caused the destruction, and the car passed her, spinning the shadow of the tree around as it passed.
Kate shrieked as she spotted a large, feline-esque shadow just on the other side of the trunk, not moving from a crouched position.
The song on her mp3 player changed to "Something Rotten" by Placebo, but Kate couldn't hear it. She couldn't hear the car that had passed her screech to a halt, doors opening. All she heard was the scream from the shadow, all she saw was the flash of claws, and then Kate neither saw, heard, nor felt anything any longer.
rest in results.
A tall man with dark chocolate-brown hair and a young face sat sipping a hot coffee in a diner. He had a plate shoved to the side of him, cleaned of its contents and a laptop he typed on brokenly, stopping to click on the touchpad or stare out the window next to him. When he stared out into the deep green trees, or down the harsh asphalt road, he stared as if waiting for someone or something to appear outside. He sipped his steaming coffee, and made a face, adding more creamer. He stirred the coffee absently, and it turned a lighter shade of brown. He yawned, and noticed his light blue button-up shirt had a ketchup stain on it, rubbing a napkin across the fabric and only succeeding in rooting the stain in further.
The bell over the front door of the diner rang quietly, alerting both the tall man and the waitress that a new customer had arrived. He was average height, with spiky light brown hair that shone goldenrod in the morning sun. He grinned and winked at the waitress, who blushed, and walked over to the other man, his boots clunking on the floor, his jeans crinkling, and his leather jacket rustling. Although he wasn't large, his presence filled up the near-empty restaurant with more spirit than the near-inaudible radio playing in the speakers overhead. His eyes seemed to sparkle mischievously, and he sat down next to the dark-haired man, who addressed him.
"So, is it our sort of job?" he sipped his coffee again, turning his attention back to his laptop.
"Nope. Just some teenagers thought it'd be fun to play with the main breaker to the town. But there is a chick a met who's worth staying a day for." He grinned again.
"Dean, I think I found something," the other man said, ignoring Dean, who made an annoyed noise and put his head down on the table.
"Sam, we've been doing jobs nonstop for the past three weeks," he said, picking his head up again. "One day is all I ask."
"I'm not sure this town can take one more day." Sam double-clicked on a webpage, pulling up a news article.
Three teens have died in the last week due to mountain lion attack. Not much is left of evidence on the freak attacks, just a few broken trees and scraps of flesh. All the attacks happened between the hours of 11pm and 6am, leading us to believe the mountain lions are feeding nocturnally. We advise residents to stay indoors after dark and to keep all children within sight. Our news team was first on the scene of the latest attack....
Sam scanned the article quickly.
"It says here that there have only been two eyewitnesses, but were unable for comment at the time, blah blah... They spoke to a local animal tracker, who said the pawprints look somewhat like a mountain lion, but differ in key areas, indicating it was actually much larger than your average puma."
"Isn't it funny how many words there are for one cat?" Dean mused. Sam gave him a look. "I'm listening, I'm listening. So it's an overgrown kitty that didn't get its meow mix? Sounds more like a job for animal control."
"Yeah, but," Sam clicked on a picture in the article to enlarge it. It showed a tuft of fur stuck in a tree that looked like someone stuck dynamite in it. Blown apart. "Apparently, the overgrown kitty did that."
"Ouch." Dean raised his eyebrows. "Hey, wait. Look at the fur closer."
Sam leaned forward, squinting at the low-quality picture.
"Could just be a bloodstain," he commented. "Or the pixilation." The dark-brown fur had ragged streaks of crimson in it. Dean shrugged, and scanned the article.
"So, the freak tabby cat just disappears?"
"That's what it says... No tracks anywhere but the scene of the crime."
"Could be one of the ghost cats, like in New York. And in Africa they had the man-eating phantom lions."
"But those wouldn't leave fur..."
"Then I guess we're off to..." Dean glanced at the article. "Meiners Oaks." He slipped a credit card with the name "Mitchell Grandell" inside the book with their check in it, and walked to the front desk to pay. The waitress hurried over, smiling at him.
Sam packed up his laptop and stretched, ringing the bell as he walked outside. He made his way to a classic black Chevrolet Impala, dating to the late 1960s, and tried to open the shotgun door, which was locked. He sighed and leaned against the door instead, waiting for Dean.
It wasn't a long wait, and soon Dean pushed the diner door open, grinning ear to ear.
"Well, that was productive." Dean pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. "I gave her a ten dollar tip, and she gave me her phone number." The waitress winked at them and waved through the window.
"Dude. Do you think of anything besides sex?"
"Can't help it, Sammy. The girls see my face an can't resist me." Dean opened the driver's side door and got in, reaching across the passenger seat to unlock Sam's side. Sam got in and pulled a seatbelt across him as Dean pushed a cassette tape into the player, blasting Metallica, and drowning out Sam's retort. Sam rolled his eyes and settled down for a long drive.
-- -- --
They arrived at the town in the afternoon the next day, and searched for a motel with a vacancy.
