Page 92 of Grave Beginnings
Angel swattedthe giant lever-style handle of the door at the end of the hall and it swung open to a large, narrow room that went up and up. The largest play run I’d ever seen in my life took up the far wall, going up a good fifty feet. Dozens of ladders, carpet walls, clear tunnels, and several curving slides led to a ball pit the size of a swimming pool and several layers of padded mats. The space was made for climbing, jumping, crawling, and overall play.
One wall stretched high with windows and a half dozen hammock-looking things attached to the glass, giving large cats a place to lounge. I could make out at least one lion, and possibly a panther, as the cat was all black with paws as big as my head.
“Is it okay for me to be in here?” I asked, wondering if the others would be bothered by a non-shifter in their space.
Angel huffed, backed up, and took a flying leap over my head. He landed on a riser a good fifteen feet up.
“Holy fuck!”
He tilted his head, staring down at me as if waiting. I scrambled for the ladder and climbed up. Each section of landing had a heavily padded layer of carpet stapled in place to extra thickboards, though I could still see gouge marks in some sections as if the cats had gotten a little rough. Angel led me through the tunnel and around a corner, then up. We played for a while, him leading, me following, until I decided to go in a different direction and popped up a half dozen yards away, grinning at him as his kitty head gazed over the top of a tunnel.
“Hi,” I said, unable to stop smiling. I hadn’t done this sort of thing since I was a kid and Grandpa and Grandma had taken me to a play place.
Angel wriggled through the opening in the tunnel, climbing on top of the plastic tube.
“Woah, kitty! Careful!” I said as he tightrope-walked his way toward me. His graceful movements assured me he had no intention of falling and could probably land on all four feet if he did. I jolted for the next set of ladders, racing upward as if I could outrun him.
Halfway up to the next level, he flew over my head and landed on that ledge. He leaned over as I climbed up, head resting on his giant paws, as if waiting for my slow ass to take all day.
“Brat,” I said as I crawled up, surprised when I glanced back and found myself suddenly dizzied by the height. When had we gotten so high up?
Angel caught my t-shirt in his teeth and tugged me further onto the platform. He gave me a funny, deep, chuffing lecture, and nosed me back toward the wall.
“Okay, okay. I’ll be careful. You too!” I told him as I headed for the next riser.
We passed a few other cats playing, racing from tunnel to tunnel. More than once, I plastered myself to the side of a bubble to let a cat with zoomies pass. It made sense that it would be mostly cats up this high, as they loved to climb, and canine varieties couldn’t. The most surprising part about the entire space was how quiet it was. Beyond my laughter as Angel and I played, the only other sounds were tiny chuffs from sleeping cats in thehammocks beyond, or someone else running through another tunnel.
The highest riser housed the top of the largest spiral slide, leading to the ball pit below. The lack of guardrail beside the slide opening made me queasy, and had me clinging to the wall. “Wow, this is high up,” I told Angel. And I remembered I hadn’t seen Ivan at all. Was he in here somewhere? “Is Ivan in here?”
Angel let out a little yapping growl toward the window. A half dozen kitty faces popped out of their hammocks, one of them the tiny black footed cat I knew was Ivan.
“Ivan,” I said, and waved. “Hey buddy. How’s it going over there?”
He stood, stretching, as he yapped something, sounding annoyed, even in his cute little cat form.
I looked at Angel. “Was I supposed to understand that?”
Ivan balanced on the edge of his hammock as if he planned to jump the thirty feet to the ground.
“Oh, no!” I cried, terrified he’d get hurt. But he jumped, landing with barely a divot in the padded mat below, on all four feet. He shook out his fur and glared up at me, as if I’d interrupted his jump. I sank to my knees with my hand on my chest. “I’m gonna have to get used to that, aren’t I? If I were a cat, I’d have just lost one of my nine lives.”
Angel leaned over the edge and did his own little yapping lecture. Ivan stared at him with disinterest.
“Wait there. I’ll be right down,” I said. I climbed into the slide, thinking it had been a long time since I’d been on a slide. I pushed off, and after the first circle, picked up speed until I knew I’d made a terrible mistake as my body turned and the oversized tube spit me out faster than Taco Bell after drinking all night.
I flew, full-on airborne for a few seconds, until I landed in a heap of plastic balls and padded mats. “Holy fuck,” I said, lying there, staring up at a half dozen amused cat faces lingering in their hammocks above.
“Note to self: supernatural slides are designed for supernatural reflexes,” I wheezed.
Balls ping-ponged over me as Angel landed beside me, his grace keeping him from ending up a mess of limbs too. He snorted over me, sniffing.
“I’m fine,” I said as I slowly sat up. Ivan sat on his haunches on the mats beside the ball pit, staring at me. “That was both awesome and terrifying.”
Angel climbed up onto the mat and sniffed Ivan, who wasn’t amused and swatted at him.
“Hey,” I said to my brother. “Be nice. We came to play for a while before heading home. Are you hungry?” I had no idea what time it was anymore. And honestly didn’t care, as I couldn’t recall a time when I’d had more fun than running around in this crazy, adult-sized playroom. I floundered my way out of the ball pit as the plastic bits came up to my waist, but landed beside Ivan and couldn’t help but lie there and laugh. “That was awesome.”
Ivan crept toward me, and I raised a brow, but didn’t run him off. My laugh faded as he crept up to lean on my shoulder, his face inches from mine. Angel chuffed and wandered to my other side, sitting down beside me.