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 Danny's Familiar  (9 ratings)by A.C. Englebert Page 4 of 4 He ran as fast as he could go down the lanes of ancient Arkham, not looking to his sides or rear. As he rounded the corner of his street, he stopped cold. "Where are you boy?" he frantically yelled back in the direction from which he'd come, but no cat appeared, and no reply came. Danny hastily ran back up the street, and searched until dusk had overtaken all of Arkham, but no cat was to be found. Hanging his head, and assuming his cat had been captured by the irritated librarian, Danny wandered balefully back home, wondering what horrible fate his friend might have met. The pound perhaps? "How terrible" the boy thought aloud, "and its my fault, boy..." Danny attempted to slip past his mother but she stopped him short of entering his bedroom, "How was the library?" she asked noticing the downtrodden look carved on his face. "It was okay, mom... I'd really just like to go to bed though if you don't mind," Danny said solemnly as he nudged past her into the hallway. "Whatever it is, I'm sure it'll be okay", she called after him as he sullenly stomped up the stairs. Danny plopped down on his bed and tried to busy himself with a book, but it failed to work in his favor. He thought of his missing friend, the horrible librarian, and of how glum everything seemed in general. "I wish I were a warlock, and I'd get her", he thought aloud in anger, "I'd turn that old bat of a librarian into a toad or something worse... I'd..." but his thought trailed off into silence. His anger having spent all of his energy, Danny collapsed in a heap and began to doze... and then the dream began again. The walls began to whir with all matter of shapes, sounds, and colors as the sun outside began its nightly abandonment of Arkham. The air seemed thick with some sort of smoke that gagged Danny as he tried to breathe and choked his cries for help to his parents. Then, suddenly, the cat appeared at the foot of the bed, eyes alight with the strange green flame, and Danny was locked in the grip of a savage fear. The large green eyes that were fixed upon Danny seemed to pull him into a dark recess of a world he somehow knew no one had ever visited... and he could see it all. It reminded Danny of watching an electrical storm that was off in the distance, but visible. Odd sigils were shadows cast against rocks and trees that seemed to take on life, and then fade into nothingness. Sounds were heard behind the mind, not by the ears, and they mingled and mixed into a devilish tune of whirling madness. The cat stepped forward, and although something told Danny he should run or cry out, he couldn't... something horrible held him fast. For there, standing alongside the cat, was the ancient gentleman Danny had seen in his grandfather's pictures, Mr. Eldridge. The specter neither spoke nor moved, except to place a candle at the foot of Danny's bed while waving his cold, withered hand as if making some long-forgotten sign of passage. Then a blinding flash struck Danny down with the force of an elephant, and he knew no more. Danny's mother was surprised to find him gone off so early on a Thursday morning. "How odd...", she thought aloud as she surveyed the cluttered room. "I wonder where that boy...", she began and then stopped as a smile crept onto her lips, "Why, you have a friend!" She bent down to pet the black cat and his companion, also black, but smaller, and with strangely familiar eyes that seemed to somehow plead with her to take him up in her arms.
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