Free Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies by Martin H. Greenberg Page A

nymphs or haunted hunting shacks. I’ve never seen a fisher cat, and I’m not entirely sure what one looks like, but the idea of these things lurking out there, invisible to us, lying in wait for our pets, blazed itself into my brain long ago.
    I think . . . maybe I’d like to get a look.
    “I’m sorry,” he adds, softer.
    I lean my head on his shoulder. I never feel quite so safe as when I’m with him. He’s not afraid of the dark, which is the coolest thing ever. I’m not afraid of the dark either, if he’s outside with me. But it still amazes me that he’ll just walk down over the bank toward the brook in full dark. I’d never go over the bank after dark. Ever since I read that Bigfoot book from the school library, I keep expecting to see Bigfoot just walking out of our trees, which freaks me out. Only at night though. For some reason I never expect to see Bigfoot during the day, which is strange since I’ve never heard that Bigfoot is nocturnal.
    Daddy stands up, ready to start the backyard fireplace to grill hamburgers. I follow him across the yard and watch him set up the fire and start it with old newspaper and kindling. I love watching fire, and this means toasted marshmallows later. He lays the old metal grill over the cement block sides. “Get the burgers from your mother?”
    “Sure.” I run inside and wait while Mom finishes pressing the meat into burgers, with baggies on her
hands. She hates to touch raw hamburger. Balancing the plate of meat and a beer for him, I walk back outside and settle in a little way off on the moss to watch him cook. It takes my mind off things, even though we don’t talk.
    The fire pops and sparks. I think about Bigfoot fighting off fisher cats, protecting my kittens.
    Over the next week I continue to think about fishers, Bigfoot, and our back bank. Something has me hooked. I just need to wait for my brain to figure out how to tell me what. Finally, I’m sitting in my swing, listening to the faraway rumble of the brook, when my brain decides it’s time to lift the curtain.
    Fishers. They’re called fishers.
    We go fishing. Down over our bank. Where my cats go and then disappear.
    Maybe if we go fishing, I could get a look at one. I picture something big and furry—I know that much—catching fish and washing it in its paws, like a raccoon.
    I start in on my dad that night. Standing over him where he’s stretched out on his back to get his spine back in line, I lean forward so I can see down into his face. “Can we go fishing?”
    He ponders. “It’s a little early, but I don’t see why not, if it doesn’t rain. I work Saturday morning, but maybe in the afternoon.”
    I nod, happy. “Do you need me to walk on you?” Sometimes I walk on his back.
    “No, it’s pretty good tonight, just a little tired.”
    “Should I dig the worms?”
    “Don’t have to until Saturday morning, but you can if you want. If you do it early, remember to put dirt in the can with them.”

    Right. Nothing more irritating than finding a bunch of great worms—not those little piddly things you can barely get on a hook—only to have them be dried-out dead on fishing day because you forgot the dirt. I mostly remember not to do that anymore, but sometimes I get overexcited.
    “And poke holes in the plastic top.”
    Oh, right. I forgot about that bit.
    I wait to dig worms until the next day, turning over the dirt in the garden patch. Daddy hasn’t planted yet. It is early, but the ground is soft enough. The Maxwell House can at my feet starts to fill. I leave the ones that are too small, and I even leave the giant purpley night crawler I find under a rock. Partly because the last time I used one, the fish totally ignored it, but mostly because they’re gross.
    I do take his rock away, though, and roll it over the bank. Daddy needs the rocks out of the garden. He says most all of Vermont is like that, and our best crop is rocks. Fields and fields of rocks. When we learned about the