Chapter 28
“Gumbo!” I raced across the short distance of the room, feeling like it was a hundred miles.
When I reached him, I gripped him with both hands.
In every medical or emergency TV show I’d ever watched, they did the same thing when someone stopped breathing.
But I wasn’t about to yell Starting chest compressions and crack one of his ribs when I had no idea what I was doing. Or what was wrong with him.
“Gumbo, can you hear me?” I rolled him onto his side and rubbed my knuckles in a circle on his chest. Then I pressed my ear close to listen for a heartbeat. I heard one, distant and unsteady, but there. Channeling my magic, I sent some of my own life into his. “Kitty, you must breathe.”
Nothing happened. I sent pulse after pulse of my magic to him, pressing my fingers to him like the beat of a heart. Cecelia joined in. The walls moved in time with our rhythm.
Gumbo coughed, sputtering, a thin trail of something yellowish oozing out of his mouth.
He rolled to his stomach, his paws splayed out.
He’d gained at least five pounds since I’d seen him last, which was sometime earlier in the day.
Beneath his fur, his skin was tight and shiny, stretched taut over his rapidly swelling body.
“Simone.” Gumbo didn’t lift his head or open his eyes. Pain laced the cuteness in his tone. He was I Can Haz if it existed in Hell. “I went too far beyond the Hem.”
“What does that mean?” As if in response, his stomach growled at him. His body rippled, head to toe, before he let out a loud fart that made the bed rumble. I gagged. The smell was so rancid, and so potent, I could taste it like bile in the back of my throat. “What did you do?”
“I must … evacuate.” His body faded in and out, and my panic grew. If he transferred himself to whatever dimension or space he lived in, I might not be able to help him. Or ever see him again.
“Stay with us.” Cecelia placed an empty bowl beside us. “Yes, great idea, Cecelia. Use this.”
Gumbo tried to stand, to move closer to the bowl, but his paws trembled under the weight of him. After two steps, he flattened himself to the mattress. “A little closer, if you would, Cecelia.”
I pulled it closer myself, grimacing as he let out yet another earth-shattering rupture of gas. I propped his head on the edge. “Here, Kitty. Let it out.”
“Much obliged, Simohhhhhh.” He moaned the end of my name, his body heaving.
“Stay here, Gumbo.”
I was gripping him tight, holding him in place with magic and might. I didn’t let up, even when he yacked into the bowl. And yacked again.
Had I thought his farts were sour? The cream he retched was curdled, coming out in mushy white chunks that reeked of twelve-year-old boy armpit sweat. My stomach churned at the sight of it. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying to keep myself from joining him.
He threw up again and again, each time more violently than the last. After every bout, Cecelia emptied the bowl, only for Gumbo to fill it again. The room was heavy with his sick; the air moist and mildewed.
After the most harrowing hour ever, Gumbo, at least, was empty.
I ran the washcloth I’d gotten from the bathroom over his fur, wiping the stink off his whiskers and muzzle, cooing words of reassurance.
With a whimper, he rolled to his side, giving me access to his stomach and paws.
While I cleaned him, Cecelia, wonderful house that she is, sent the bowl of disgustingness far, far away.
I wrapped him in a blanket, pulling him close to my chest. Gradually, his body stopped shuddering and snores replaced dry heaves.
His stomach still gurgled and muttered, and occasionally his tail would go completely straight while he released a stream of sulfuric air.
But his breath was even and strong. Eventually, I, too, fell asleep, my hand on his belly, feeling it lift and fall under my touch.
I awoke a few hours later when light streamed through my window and into my eyes.
An odd occurrence, since Cecelia usually controlled the brightness of the room.
Half the time when I woke up, I didn’t know if it was night or day.
Gumbo was still asleep on my legs, and my arms tingled from holding him close. I could not yet bear to let him go.
Maybe it was my imagination, but he already seemed smaller than he’d been the night before, as if he’d taken some magical overnight weight loss pill. I scritched his little head until he stirred, rolling over with a moan that would rival a hundred-year-old getting out of a low chair.
“What a night.” He made a bunch of super cute sounds, smacking his mouth and sounding like my kitty. “Cecelia, some cream, if you please?”
“How can you eat that after last night?” I shuddered. I’d gotten food poisoning after eating a particularly delectable spinach quiche once, vomiting uncontrollably for hours after. And I hadn’t touched a quiche since. “I’d be happy never to see another bowl of cream again.”
“It’s all I can consume. I’m not a normal cat, Simone.” A reasonably sized bowl appeared. On the floor. Gumbo stared at it. After a sigh, he stretched his front paws over the edge of the bed and slid to the ground.
“That’s an understatement.” I joined him on the floor, giving him long strokes down his back while he sipped.
Seeing him that ill had shaken me. He was no spring chicken.
I think. No matter how disgusting that cream looked, or what horrid memories resurfaced, I wanted to stay as close to him as possible.
“What happened last night?” I asked after he finished. “That was scary, bud.”
“Indeed.” He belched, the caustic heat of his breath wafting toward me. “And thank you for taking such great care of me. You, as well, Cecelia. I’m feeling much better today.”
He said it casually, as if he’d recovered from the flu and not from near-death. But when he rolled to his side and stretched, then farted, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Are you sure you’re feeling better?”
“Indeed.” Gumbo looked up at the bed with longing. “Too far past the Hem,” he muttered, then turned in a circle and curled himself into a fat kitten ball. “I just need a touch more rest.”
“Gumbo.” I nudged him to keep his eyes open. “What the heck is the Hem?”
“Another time, if you please.” He didn’t wait to see if I pleased or not. He was fast asleep in seconds and disappeared a moment later.
While I was glad he felt better, I didn’t. What little sleep I had gotten had been upright and anxiety-ridden. I checked the clock. It was barely 4 a.m. Why on earth was the sun out?
I peeked through the blinds, catching only the shadow of something darting past.
Then the singing started.