WileyKit could not wait for that year’s vacation. In the past, when she and her brother had arrived on New Thundera, the two would spend weeks exploring the countryside. Lately, though, as they grew older they learned to live apart and she began to spend more and more time with Panthro.

Panthro had always been her favorite and though he tended to act a lot older they were really about the same age. She told no one, not even WileyKit about the crush she had on the panther, mostly because she was too nervous and too embarrassed. Indeed, she wondered if he could ever return the affection, though back on Third Earth he had always been very kind to her.

That year she and Panthro were going to spend a whole month roaming though the vast southern continents. She could not believe that she would have so much time with him nor she did have to wait long. By July the Thunder Tank was packed and ready to go.

The first day on the trail was highly uneventful, it was not until the night after the third day that they actually left those parts of the planet that were accurately mapped and explored -- many things had been altered when the planet reformed and it was their responsibility to see just how much had changed.

In the moonless, darkness they passed the imaginary line between what was known and what was unexplored. It was especially exciting for WileyKit because she had no real memories of Thundera. Panthro, too, seemed to have become something of a kid himself. He let her stay awake most of the night and walk around the clearing where he parked the vehicle to rest. He kept a wide-eye open, watching out for her safety, of course.

They first heard it on a lonely stretch of wasteland near the ocean. The gray, turbulent waters were to the west. A large, orange sand plateau loomed far in the east. Much, much closer were small hills and mounds that dotted the scene.

What began as a slight tapping under the vehicle grew louder the faster Panthro drove. It quickly became pounding.

"What, by Jagga’s that?" he asked himself.

"We must've run over something."

He stopped and stepped out of the Thunder Tank. There was nothing caught in the wheels or under treads as far as he could tell. A cold wind blew hard. He looked up at the sky as dark clouds painted the horizon.

"There's gonna be a storm," he said.

The pounding persisted when they were on the trail again. After a while he could barely steer. Once again he stopped.

"Something's caught under the wheels, but that can't be, can't be anything there. I checked."

Large raindrops hit the windshield. The closest settlement was about forty miles away, so he was told back at Cat’s Lair -- not that anyone there knew for sure. The desolate scene had only an old house near a small hill next to the road.

"Let's make a run-for-it. Someone in that house might be able to help us."

So they ran fast to that old house but in the time they reached the rotting wood of the front steps they were unable to beat the coming of the storm. The two were drenched from head to toe but once under the roof of the porch they were safe from the downpour.

A small mail box read a name long decayed over time. Next to that was a small window. Dusty, mildewed curtains shrouded any view of the interior. There was no door bell. Panthro knocked. Thunder and lightning crashed above -- they hoped someone inside could help them.

WileyKit was glad when a girl about her age answered the door.

"I'll have someone to talk to if we've to stay for long," WileyKit thought to herself. But there was something wrong with that girl. Her eyes tended to look faraway, toward the ocean. All the while she talked to WileyKit and Panthro her gaze was fixed upon some part of the horizon significant to her alone. A red ribbon hung from her neck. "Why would anyone wear such a fancy ribbon with a T-shirt and jeans?" she wondered. The girl, whose name was also Kit, asked them to enter.

"I live with my father," she said. "He comes here now."

Kit's father came down and shook hands with all his guests. When he offered them drinks she noticed something wrong with him too. He wore a black bow-tie, the kind a man would wear to a formal occasion, under his sweatshirt. She could not help but think how strange it looked.

"Communications are down," he said when he returned with mugs of juice. "When the storms are so violent even the electricity goes out."

"There's no way to get in contact with the settlement?"

"No," his gaze was exactly like his daughter's. "It’s almost forty miles away and no more advance than my home is. We must first wait out the storm, then you and I can go look at your vehicle."

The window curtains were spread open to reveal the gray gloomy weather that clung over the barren scene. The two girls talked under the window while rain and wind whirled outside. Curiously enough they realized that they liked many of the same things but especially Panthro. Both WileyKits found him ‘dreamy.’ She felt lucky she had found someone so much like herself. Before long they were giggling and sharing secrets as if they had known each other a lifetime.

As soon as the storm died the men headed out to the Thunder Tank. It started up all right. They drove it around for a while and just like that it was OK. The pounding was gone. There was scarcely a hint of the tapping that had begun it all.

WileyKit did not want to leave so hastily. She promised she would see them again soon and with that she and Panthro were back in the Thunder Tank, back on the trip, unscaved. She was more excited about the new friend she had made than on the adventure. Sometimes she thought about the ribbon and that faraway look in her eyes but mostly she remembered the good times they had had together. Then, when a few days and weeks passed, her attention was again refocused on what mattered.

After a great excursion it was time for the Thundercats to return home. WileyKit begged Panthro to stop at the old prairie house when they were traveling through the wastelands again.

"I'd just like to see her one more time," she said.

Reluctantly: "Well, I suppose we can," he agreed. "We should be coming up past the house about now." They became confused, even disturbed when they drove by that part of the road where the Thunder Tank had given out. Where the house should have been there stood a decrepit two-room shack. A small hill loomed behind it.

"I don't understand. I don't remember ever seeing this."

"We should stop and ask. Someone inside ought to know where the house is."

Again, very reluctantly, Panthro knocked on the door until someone inside opened it just enough to peer out like a frightened animal. When the door opened the rest of the way WileyKit was surprised to see a woman who looked so much like the girl, so much older. The woman nervously invited the two in and when she heard what WileyKit wanted to know she turned white as a ghost.

"On the other side of the hill is the house you are looking for," she said, "but you no one will find there. No one lives there and I should know. I was that man's wife."

"Your daughter, Kit," WileyKit said, "I met almost a month ago."

The woman stared at her with that faraway look.

Panthro jumped in: "There came a pounding under the Thunder Tank and I had to stop 'cause I was--"

She cut him off mid-sentence: "You couldn't have met my daughter," she said in a loud but shaky voice. When she paused the whole shack was silent. "I told her not to play on the trail. I must have told her that a thousand times. ‘Don't play on the road, Kit, don't play on the road. Don't play on the road, Kit, don't play on the road. Don't play on the road, Kit, don't play on the road." Her voice trailed into a whisper.

"WileyKit, I think we should go."

"No!" the woman shouted. "No! If you have seen my Kit, if you've seen my husband, we must--"

"Are you all right, ma'am?"

She began to sob and rock back and forth in her chair.

"Kit wasn't, Kit was not supposed to play on the trial. I had just come back from the town that day. An ice storm was brewing. I didn't, I didn't see her playing in the grass until it was too late." She screamed at the picture that formed in her mind's eye, that only she could see. "I heard a pounding, a terrible pounding come from under the vehicle. Then I saw my husband run toward me, toward me, toward me. He was waving him arms but I couldn't stop! The car'd hit a patch of ice and slid uncontrollably. My God, after so many years, can I ever stop that pounding? Will it echo in my head as long as I live?" She put her hands over and around her forehead and gripped hard while she shook violently. Then she looked right at Panthro. He had been inching to the door. "But don't you understand? I killed them, I killed them both. They were caught under the car and I dragged them while they made that horrible pounding!" Here she turned and whispered to WileyKit: "Their heads were caught under the wheels, I chopped their heads off. Their heads were caught under the wheels, I chopped their heads off. Their heads were caught under the wheels, I chopped their heads off." For every word she spoke she became increasingly agitated until at length she broke in a cold, hideous laughter.

WileyKit could not believe a word if it. She screamed as she ran out of the small shack to the old prairie house. It was right on the other side of the hill where the woman had said it was. She knew Kit would be there to invite her in just like before. The woman had to be crazy, that was it, that was all.

She trembled as she came to the door.

"It can't be true. It just can't be true."

Hanging on the door knob was a red ribbon and a black bow-tie, tainted with crisp, dry blood.