I ended up sleeping by the front door that night. As much as i reassured myself that the strange noise didn't worry me, it really did.
Whatever it belonged to could burst through and get to Missy. Even with her doors and windows boarded with towels, it wouldn’t be enough to stop an intruder.
The storm, now a whistling cold wind, had ebbed from the vicious frenzy that had torn through the town over those last two days.
There was no saving the damage it had caused. Grass and flowers littered the train tracks, the slanted fence around the house almost kissed the ground, and the destroyed vegetable patch had found it's way into the surrounding fields.
But, after all that howling and beating against the house, it wasn't the wind that woke me. It was that noise again.
My ears perked up at it but I refused to let it move me from my warm patch by the door.
It was just more tricks.
I heard Missy's bare feet on the floor beside me as she moved to the door curiously. She was tying up the front of a long brown wool coat as she unlatched it.
"Did you hear that?" she peered down at me.
She.... heard it too?
We both peeked through the crack in the door together, listening.
The wind whistled and froze our faces, but it was there.
That faint little noise.....
"Ma..." it whimpered.
Missy threw the door open to step outside. I followed and scanned the fields for the sound.
"Ma...."
It wasn't the wind. I wasn't hearing things after all....
"Soup" Missy touched the back of my head lightly "go find it."
I scurried off the verandah and bolted through the beaten grass down towards the tracks.
Pausing, I picked up the little sound coming from my right that I veered for.
"Ma...."
Halting, I searched again in desperation.
"Hello?" I called.
"Ma?"
It was close. Dropping my head low, I picked through the destruction around me until my claws nicked something soft that didn't recoil.
Moving around it, I saw that the strange thing was an outstretched curled hand slathered with mud and flowers. It belonged to a tucked, malnourished body so smothered in filth that it blended right into the flower field.
I saw the whites of two red eyes flutter up at me weakly before they closed again.
Wiping off the mud with my thumb, I saw the claws were stained black like mine. Swiping another layer of mud off further up the skinny arm confirmed the bright white skin matched mine also.
A kid? What was it doing out here? How could it be out here?
Looking around for some sort of answer, I shoved it with my head to try and make it move.
When that didn't work, I squeezed myself under the little body to lift it over my back. The thing was so skinny that I could feel it's ribcage and hips jutting into me when I rushed back for the house in the distance.
At least it was still breathing, although weakly. It's skin was burning into mine from how starved of warmth it was. It felt tacky beneath the layer of mud and flowers still coating it. It didn't even have the strength to shiver.
"MISSY!" I called into the wind as I approached the house "I FOUND IT!"
"Soup! What is it?" she hurried down the stairs and froze when she saw my bundled shoulders "it that....?"
She rushed forward to drag the kid from me, looking around in the same way I had as it hung limply against her.
She saw the similarities too but didn't linger on them.
"I'll grab the keys" Missy said while unwrapping her coat to press the muddy kid inside and tie it back up "we'll take the scooter."
I nodded, sprinting past Missy to fly into her bedroom and snatch up her scooter helmet that always laid beside her bed.
"Should we go to the hospital? To the vet?" Missy worried when we met again at the door she locked.
There was no hospital in this little town. She'd have to push her little scooter to its limits on the road out of town for a good hour before coming across one.
But, the town did have a vet. It mainly took stray cats and dogs; birds even, but never anything like this.
It was our best option.
"Vet" Missy sighed before I could answer, nodding to herself "it's all we have."
She pushed out against the wind to cradle the kid against her and struggle to heave the scooter off it's stand, almost dropping it.
I offered up the helmet when she climbed on, grimacing back at the lack of space for me.
I circled the scooter, letting Missy know I could keep up. She shuddered it to life and flicked on the weak light that spilled over the debris.
Charging ahead, I led the way. I heard Missy's scooter whine behind me as it tried to warm up against her demands to speed it up. It eventually picked up, kicking past me to trail down near the tracks where it was safer.
Sprinting over the fields, I caught up to and passed Missy's determined face focusing solely ahead. Her jacket billowed around her from where it was tightly knotted around the kid still pressed to her front. I could see it's little head tucked inside the coat, jostling from the scooter flying over the grass and flowers for the town ahead.
I cut the corner where Bartie usually met me to spill his usual warning, and sprinted past his shop he poked his head from.
Missy wasn't far behind, speeding up the abandoned road after me.
The town wasn't big. Even with no clue to where I was going, I found the large cat and dog signage towering from the roof of the small vet on the roadside. It was only a few more metres ahead.
Waiting for Missy to pull up out the front, I climbed the three wooden stairs and lingered at the screen door she threw open to rush inside for the desk.
I hung back, seeing a young Border Collie laying in the ground beside it's older owner heavily tanned from the sun. Beside the man was a freckled woman with a carrier holding a miserable cat. On the other side, a dripping teen huddling under a sheet cradled a beaten box that was mewing.
"Soup" Missy gestured for me to follow her out the back.
The door was held open for us to squeeze through and down to a small room a woman in a dark green uniform entered behind us.
There was a metal table in between us. To the left was shelving with all sorts of medical equipment. Opposite us laid a shelf with all sorts of mismatched towels and sheets.
"Now, what do we have here?"
"That's just the thing" Missy worried as she gently laid the kid down onto the metal table "I don't know."
The woman leant over and smiled at me. Her brown hair was tied back into a ponytail that hung to the side when she grinned at my face.
"Well, it's not a Labrador" she joked, straightening again so she could head over to grab a swab to clean up a spot on the kids' arm "it's not the first animal that's washed through with the storm. If anything, it's just severely malnourished. Some fluids should perk it up."
We watched the woman leave the room and quickly return with a pole she wheeled in that had a sloshing bag attached to it.
"It's a bit crowded in the bays at the moment, so we'll have to keep it on the table for now" she explained as she prodded the vein with her finger to accept the needle she peeled from it's packaging and gently inserted "where did this one show up?"
"Near my house" Missy explained "Soup found it."
The woman smiled at my name and taped down the needle.
"Soup here is quite the talk of the town. Did you know that Sammy wanted to make him the mascot of the clinic here? Stick him up on our sign?"
We snorted at the absurdity of it all. Both her and Missy laughed over the thought.
Of course this woman already knew about me. Her casual interaction told me that already. Anyone else would be startled to see what looked like an omen of death walk into their practise.
The woman peeled back the lips of the kid to press on its gums, then opened it's rolled eyes to check them too. She then went to pull down a sheet to cover the kid with, checking beneath it.
"It's a little girl" she announced to us "if we are basing it off Soup's unusual structure, then I'd have to say she's not much older than seven; maybe even five from her tiny frame."
"So young" Missy frowned.
I looked up at the kid above me and felt sadness wash over me.
What was someone this young doing away from their family? She had been calling out for someone before I found her too.
Was she abandoned?
"So, how much will this be?" Missy dropped her voice "I don't want to leave you out of pocket."
The woman smiled again, chuckling a little.
"We don't charge for the care of strays."
"But, she isn't....."
"However, we do take donations" the woman continued as she pulled out a scrap of paper and started to scribble on it "for the care of the strays that come in."
She placed emphasis so that it would dawn across Missy what she really meant.
Missy looked down at the paper and let out a little laugh.
"These are sizes."
"And my favourite colour is dark purple" the woman replied cheekily.
Missy tucked the paper away with a knowing smile.
"All this little one needs is love and care" the woman spoke while slipping out the needle and patching up the arm "I'm sure you can offer that to her."
Missy tucked the sheet around the kid and replaced her back against her under the coat she secured again.
"I can't thank you enough."
"It's my pleasure to always see what comes through here" the woman winked back "just take your time with that donation. Don't strain yourself."
"Thank you so much."
"It's nothing" she insisted as we were ushered to the door "take care of yourself too, Soup."
I smiled nervously back and followed Missy back out into the main foyer where she farewelled the front desk and was given short well-wishes by the tanned elder before pushing back out into the storm and onto her drenched scooter I shepherded home.
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