Free The Forgotten by Tamara Thorne

the foyer. The front door? It was a soft sound, and the muted squawk of a bird followed. Rorschach sprung off the bed and left the room to join the investigation. There was another small shriek, followed by a noise similar to the first one. No. It can’t be.
    Will reached under the bed and grabbed his old baseball bat, just in case, then rose and walked softly down the hall. He found the triplets sitting in the dimly lit foyer staring intently at the front door. Rorschach glanced his way and trilled. Freud, tail plumed straight up with avid interest, sniffed the doorjamb. These were not frightened animals. Will rested the bat against the wall and turned on the porch light before peering out the peephole. Nothing. “So what’s up, guys?” he murmured as he unlocked the heavy wooden door. The cats crowded him, curiosity boundless, Rorschach trilling, the other two meowing in the tone they usually reserved for raw steak. He blocked them with his legs, muttering, “Knock it off.” Finally, he pulled the door open and peered out through the ornate semi-security screen door. The first thing he saw was at eye-level. It looked like a thorn poking through one of the heavy gauge wire holes. He pushed on it and it dropped, his gaze following. It wasn’t a thorn, but a beak. Yep, again . On his doormat lay a small pile of birds. Not crows, smaller creatures, more gray and white than black. Mockingbirds, maybe. His mother used to call them catbirds, but he didn’t know why. Some appeared dead, most of them wounded, and a couple were sitting up, looking dazed. Stunned.
    The cats went nuts, proving that humans weren’t the only ones who possessed a version of Jung’s universal unconsciousness. They knew exactly what they were looking at and they wanted them. Will wondered what these cats, who’d never hunted their own food, would do with birds. Probably not eat them. His own curiosity roused, but then he flashed on what the Orange Boys did with the little rabbit-fur mice he bought for them and instantly decided all the growling and tossing and batting wouldn’t be nearly as cute with a living creature as it was with toys.
    Ah, isn’t that sweet? He remembered the next-door neighbor, Mrs. Locke, cooing those words as her big gray tabby, Bruiser, batted around a hapless gopher he’d caught. Will had watched, fascinated, while Bruiser tormented the creature for a good twenty minutes before administering a death bite and trotting off with the dead thing, maybe to eat, probably to show off his hunting prowess to Mrs. Locke or maybe some other cat. Back then, he’d been too young to understand what the cat was putting the rodent through, no matter how well-deserved the torment, but now he did understand. He looked at his own fluffy little killing machines. “Sorry, guys, you’re civilized.”
    He continued to watch the birds. One flew away successfully after several false starts. Meanwhile, another sat up and more birds began moving. The screen had evidently been far less deadly to the mockingbirds than the glass to the crows. After a few more birds took off, Will decided to let nature take its twisted course and used his foot to push all the cats out of the doorway long enough to close the main door before he turned off the porch light. “I’m going back to bed,” he told them. “What about you guys?”
    They didn’t even look at him. All three had already moved in and flattened themselves against the marble tile and were trying to see beneath the door, very much like they did when an auto race was on TV and they tried to figure out how to get at those little cars.

12
    â€œHey, baby brother.”
    I knew I should’ve let the machine pick up . “Hello, Pete. What’s up?” Will hit save on the computer then stared out the window. As usual, the Crescent was spectacular. Out to sea, whitecaps rode the choppy waves.
    â€œBusiness is