Free Sleepwalker by Michael Cadnum

elephants.”
    â€œBut the poor cat,” said Irene. “To lose its leg.”
    â€œIt was five years ago, love,” said the red-faced man. “The cat runs better on three legs now than I do on two.”
    â€œThis is a sad story, then,” said the man’s companion.
    When they were alone in a corner of the pub, Irene was radiant. “To frighten us with a story that happened five years ago. I thought it was something that happened yesterday.”
    But she was not simply relieved about the cat’s good health. She had something in mind. “Do you want to see the foxes hunt rabbits, Davis?”
    â€œOf course. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that.”
    â€œI can show you where they hunt rabbits. Tonight, if you want to see.”
    They drank another pint, and then ventured out into the cold.
    It was a good chill. Davis put his arm around her, just slightly unsteady with the surprisingly strong beer.
    â€œAre you sure,” said Davis, “that there are foxes at night?”
    â€œOf course, Davis, and rabbits, too. You know so little.”
    Davis admitted that this was true.
    â€œYou would rather stay inside, would you, and not see the rabbits and the foxes?”
    Davis would go anywhere she went, and said so.
    It was a long walk, and Davis, who had been partly refreshed by the cold wind, now found himself lost. The Terry chocolate factory loomed in the distance, far to the east. They walked purposefully across a field.
    She held his hand and would not let him leave the path.
    â€œWhy not?” said Davis. “It’s just a field, isn’t it?”
    â€œBad things happen to people who wander,” said Irene cheerfully.
    They reached a small hill, and sat.
    â€œHere,” said Irene. “Here—if we sit still, we can hear them bark.”
    They were warm together, when he held her. Then Davis heard them. Distant clicks, like small sticks breaking.
    â€œFoxes,” breathed Irene.
    â€œReally?” said Davis. He was amazed. He had never heard a fox before now.
    But then there was silence.
    A long silence. Davis turned his head one way, and then another, but he could hear nothing.
    â€œI frightened them away,” said Davis.
    She did not speak at once. “Davis, I have something terrible to tell you.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI made it all up, about the foxes. I only wanted to get you out here, in the beautiful field, in the dark.”
    â€œYou mean—there are no foxes at all?”
    â€œOf course there are foxes. But the ones I talked about were pretend.”
    She was warm when he held her. “What made the clicks?” he asked at last.
    â€œThere was nothing, Davis. You heard them in your mind.”
    Davis insisted. “I want to find out what made the noise.”
    The night was very dark, and he collided with it before he could see it. It turned slowly and shook its head, violently, and he heard the clicks of its halter.
    He led it back, and it followed, huge and warm in the dark.
    For once Irene was surprised. “You found the biggest rabbit in the world,” she laughed.
    â€œIt’s a fox,” Davis replied.
    The horse nuzzled him, with gusts of warm air from its nostrils.
    Long after they had left it Irene was still laughing, and Davis was still stopping to look back toward the place where the horse stood, invisibly, in the darkness.

8
    Oliver, redheaded and sweating, was attacking a stump of concrete in the side of Trench Three. A graduate student, a pale, pudgy young man with glasses, was scraping the surface of the trench floor. He was scraping in the approved manner, always in one direction, a small ridge of scrapings always before him, until it became a crest, and could be dumped carefully into a black bucket.
    Peter had spent the morning repairing the generator. The repair had been simple. A belt had broken. Belts are made to be broken, and Peter had kept a spare in the