Beaten and thrown out of his home by his father, Guy ends up on the streets. A few days later he's 'adopted' by two strays, a German shepherd mix and a gray kitten. Later that night, when he returns to a vacant house he'd found the previous day, he meets three other homeless teens -- Mack, Tone, and Dani. After a false start, because they think he's a punk looking for trouble, they become friends. Dani insists the animals need names, and she decides to call the kitten Ghost, while the dog becomes Shadow. When Mack and Guy are threatened by two real punks in the alley behind the house, Shadow defends them, with Mack's help. This leads to their decision that it isn’t safe to remain where they are. As they move on, the quartet's friendship deepens, and Guy eventually trusts them enough to tell them he's gay ... which they accept with no problem, as it turns out so are Mack and Tone. Now they have to continue dealing with life on the streets while COVID ravages the country, making being homeless a fight for their very survival.

Strays in the Time of COVID

“Umm, sure.” Guy put the kitten down. The girl knelt, smiling when it came to her outstretched hand, allowing her to rub its head.


“I don’t know,” Guy told her. “Same with the dog. Like I said, I just found them and they don’t have collars or tags.”


“You gotta name them. You can’t call them dog and cat and leave it at that.”


“Well, he could,” Mack, the protective teen, said with a brief smile. He tossed the pipe on his sleeping bag, which Guy hoped meant he finally trusted him.


“What’s another word for gray?” the last teen asked.


“I know, you can call him, or her, Ghost, or Ash.” The girl picked the kitten up, turning it on its back. “Her, I think. No dick.”


“Not sure you’d see it unless it was peeing,” Mack pointed out.


“Well, she looks like a she, so how about Ghost. That’s, what do they call it? Gender neutral?” She looked up at Guy.


“I suppose Ghost works. What do you think, cat?”


Chapter 5