by EM Roberts
Chapter 8: And, Here We Are
Chapter 9: The Decision
Chapter 10: And They All Lived Happily Ever After?
Prologue: Man’s Best Friend
Max trotted through the house. Something was off, and his nose couldn’t quite place it. Normally, he was a good sniffer. In fact, he could smell his master as soon as he pulled into the driveway and stepped out of the car. And, you’d better believe that he could smell bacon from almost a mile away. Today, though, the smell was a little rank, and there were no pleasing bacon smells.
He trotted through the house. His master, the man, hadn’t left for work yet, and that seemed odd to Max. Normally, the man had a routine. He would get up, put on that bitter tasting, brown drink he called coffee, sit at the kitchen table reading the news, and then he would go into the bathroom and prepare for his day. Before the man left for work, he would always reach down and pet Max. It was their routine, and they never, ever deviated away from their routine.
Max trotted to the bedroom door. This was where the odor seemed strongest. The door was slightly open, and taking this as an invitation, Max trotted into the bedroom. He heard the man making unintelligible noises from the bed. Standing upon his hind legs, Max looked at his master who lay tossing and turning, the sheets wrapped around his body. He leaned closer and swiped his tongue across his master’s face. Normally, when he did this, his master would laugh and say, “Yuck,” but this time, there was no response.
Also, Max realized the master’s skin was unnaturally hot. Max whined a little because he loved his master, and he knew the man was not well. He knew it was more than the little sniffles or the coughing that sometimes happened to his master. This was something more serious and more sinister. He felt the wrongness all the way to the tip of his tail which had dropped in between his legs.
“Ahhhhhhhh,” his master groaned as he started to roll from the bed, causing Max to jump back a little. Max was afraid because he’d seen some of the dogs in his neighborhood being treated badly by their masters. There was no way the man he loved would ever do that to him. Max was always the recipient of pets and hugs. In fact, he was probably a little spoiled.
Max felt his master grab his silky coat, and even then he wasn’t afraid. In fact, Max snuggled closer to his master. He wanted to comfort him. Only when his master’s teeth punctured his skin, did Max become worried. He barked, whined in response and jumped back out of the way. His master stumbled to his feet and attempted to grab Max once again. The part of him that was a forgiving, loyal pet wanted nothing more than to run to his master and give him affection, but the intelligent animal in him knew he should not do it.
The creature, Max knew it was no longer his trusted friend, lumbered after him, stumbling and crashing into various pieces of furniture. Max knew this was odd because the man was a runner and very athletic. In fact, he would often take Max with him on his runs and swims. Max was unsure what to do next, but he knew he didn’t want to hurt his best friend. And, he also didn’t want his master to hurt him. But, that wise part of Max told him this person was no longer his friend.
Through a series of dodges and quick maneuvers, Max was able to evade the creature, but he knew it wouldn’t be for long. He wouldn’t be able to get out of the house. He was trapped! Whining, he urinated on the carpet. He was that afraid. He immediately felt disgusted with his actions and whimpered even more. He hid under the kitchen table as his master stumbled and shuffled around the kitchen. He needed to be very quiet.
Suddenly the path to freedom became available when the kitchen door opened and a uniformed man entered the house. Max made his escape into the outside yard. He was still worried about his master, though. He was especially worried when he heard a loud boom come from the house. It was similar to the noises he’d heard earlier in the year when all the humans in the neighborhood were having a good time and making the noises into the sky. This time, he knew, it wasn’t a celebration. This was evident when the same man left the house in a hurry.
The human had left the door open, and allowing his curiosity to get the best of him, Max cautiously nosed his way back into the house. His master lay on the kitchen floor, an odd smell emanating from his body. There were also liquids spreading over the kitchen floor as they seeped from his body. Max licked them and realized it wasn’t a horrible taste. In fact, it was very good. But, Max knew something was wrong, so he quelled the urge to continue licking. His master was gone, and Max knew it. There would be no more treats and no more petting. He was alone now.
Almost one year later or seven in dog years
It seemed like an eternity since Max had received any kind of affection. He’d walked forever and ever looking for a new master. Everywhere, he went, though, he encountered horrible creatures who seemed like they could be masters, but once he smelled them or got close, he realized they were like his old master had been the day he’d tried to hurt Max. They were bad, and they wanted to hurt him. So, he ran. He’d been running for a long time now.
He learned new skills as a dog on the run. He no longer had someone to care for him and make sure he was fed. Instead, he’d had to forage for food among the scraps. There were scraps everywhere for a while, and then it had become harder and harder to forage. So, Max had become adept at hunting. He’d started hunting small creatures that hopped and some who leapt from tree to tree. Some days, he ate, and some days he didn’t. But, he’d learned how to survive.
It was a few weeks ago that he’d smelled something different. Along with a pleasing floral smell, he’d smelt several honest to goodness human smells. It’d been so long since he’d smelled a human who wasn’t bad or sick, and he almost didn’t recognize the scent. His nose had been following the odor from town to town, and it had become stronger. It was so strong now, in fact, he just knew he would find its owner. Perhaps a new master? He would see.
His sharp nose followed the smell up to a farm house. He could hear noises that were similar to his master’s commands, and curiosity got the better of him. He walked right up to the door of the house. He was tired of running, so he thought he would take a chance. He scratched the door several times, and when no one answered, he whined a little. He knew humans couldn’t resist that. Suddenly the door opened, and the sweet smell enveloped him.
“Oh, my goodness, Parker! Look, it’s a dog--a Dalmatian! I always wanted one when I was a child. Hello, poor fella! Aw, look, he’s wagging his tail,” the human cried, her voice nice and pleasing. The girl leaned down and looked at the collar around his neck.
“Aww. His name is Max. Poor guy. I’m surprised he still has the collar. He looks pretty thin,” the young woman said as she ran a loving hand over his coat.
The woman’s sweet voice and touch caused Max to wag his tail harder. This prompted the human to hug him. Max sighed in relief. It felt so good to have a human touch him with such pleasure and kindness. He licked the woman’s face, and she laughed.
“It looks like I’ve found a dog. You and I are going to be best friends,” the woman declared, and Max fell in love with his new master right then and there.
Chapter 1: Scar Tissue
The blood from the three inch gash on Ella’s face had slowed to a trickle. This didn’t lessen the pain any, the throbbing still intense. It was going to leave one hell of a scar. That wasn’t anything she needed to worry about right now, though. There would be time for vanity later. Right now, she was in one hell of a mess, she thought, as she took stock of her surroundings.
Immediately after regaining consciousness, she’d felt the pain coming from her face and her arm. Glancing down at her arm, she could immediately see that it was broken near her wrist. It reminded her of that time when she was playing touch football with her brother and a group of friends from the church youth group. Her brother had tried to tag the youth group leader, and it had ended up being a tackle instead. The woman had fallen, and the snap of her arm filled the playground. Her arm above the wrist, like Ella’s, bent unnaturally to th
e side.
Ella sat up, holding the broken arm to her chest. It was also starting to throb, unmercifully. She gritted her teeth against the pain and looked around at the carnage of the crashed helicopter. The Apache hadn’t gone down gracefully. Bits and parts of her lay haphazardly throughout the dense carpet of the forest.
She ripped a piece of her shirt and held it to the bleeding wound on her face with her uninjured hand. Tears came to her eyes from the pain of the wound and the broken arm. She’d didn’t think she’d ever felt pain like this before, but she would just have to deal with it.
She knew they’d gone down in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. The dense forest stretched on for miles. A piece of the of the helicopter’s tail lay on one of the young officers who’d been recruited by Lt. General Adams to make this flight when he’d kidnapped her. She knew without looking that the young man was dead and beyond her help. The other young officer who’d been piloting the helicopter was dead as well, his head laying several feet from his body. A look of abject horror was frozen into his face—as if the man had seen his death coming. Ella felt pity for the two men even though they’d played a role in her kidnapping. They were young and impressionable and trying to survive a strange world. It was hard for her to fault them for that.
Adams and his goon, the giant sized serial killer Hector, both lay face down. Ella thought about walking away and leaving them, but she couldn’t do it. It wasn’t out of concern for either of them. She couldn’t leave without knowing if the two were alive or dead. She needed to know. Hopefully, they were dead. If not, then she’d have to deal with it—somehow.
She thought back to the last twenty-four hours. They’d taken off from the mobile New Army camp in Missouri and had flown the Apache helicopter west. Adams had abandoned all of his faithful followers because he felt he no longer needed them. Instead, his plan was to trade Ella for the codes to the secret government survival facility located under Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Parker Wallace, former President of the United States, was the only one who had the codes to the facility, and Adams was banking on him trading them for Ella. She knew she had to do something so that Parker wouldn’t have to make that choice.
They’d stopped once in Kansas to refuel, and that was when Ella had started with her plan.
“You two are so naïve if you think Adams will let you live when we get to the facility,” Ella told the two young soldiers who had been left guarding her while Hector and Adams went to use the bathroom.
“Shut up,” one of the young men snarled, his face flushing an angry red.
“What do you mean? He brought us with him.” The other young man voiced, ignoring his comrade’s look of warning.
“I mean Adams has no friends. He has Hector. Why would he want you? You’re just another mouth to feed,” Ella goaded.
“Ignore her, Sam.” The first officer ordered his friend.
“Plus, are you the kind of men who would assault a woman?” Ella continued. She had nothing to lose.
“What do you mean by that? I respect women,” Sam asked, outraged, his Adam’s apple quivering in anger.
“Well, Adams is that kind of man. I know this for a fact,” Ella stated, anger flashing in her eyes as she remembered being at the mercy of Adams’ groping hands while Hector watched in enjoyment. At least he hadn’t raped her.
“The Lieutenant wouldn’t do that. He’s an honorable man,” Sam vowed, his voice rising in pitch.
“You’re right Sam, I’m an honorable man, but sometimes a woman needs put in her place,” Adams stated, coming up behind the man and clapping him on the back in warning.
Sam gulped and looked away. Ella knew he was beginning to question his loyalty to Adams. Everyone in the camp, including these two young men, had seen Ella paraded half-dressed to the helicopter. Her mouth had been busted and blood trailed down her chin. It didn’t take much to realize what had happened to her at the hands of Adams and Hector. She was counting on the young man’s sympathy when she made her move.
She’d waited until they were in the air for about an hour before she’d made that move. Sitting between Adams and Hector, she’d suddenly let out a cry of abject pain.
“You have to land the helicopter. I’m going to be sick,” she’d cried, holding her stomach.
“Suck it up,” Adams ordered, elbowing her in the rib cage, causing her to gasp in pain.
“Please, I’m dying. You have to help me,” she pleaded to the young helicopter pilot.
“Sir, she sounds awfully sick,” the young man, nervously said into his headset, turning slightly to look back.
“Pilot, pay attention to your job. The woman is fine!” Adams shouted above the sound of the helicopter.
Ella slumped down, playing at unconsciousness, causing the pilot to look back in concern. She felt kind of bad, playing on the young man’s sympathies, but he did kind of know what he was getting into when he signed on with Adams.
“Sir, I’m going to set down!” The young man shouted. Ella breathed a sigh of relief. She had no plan except to fight back. That’s all she could do.
Adams leaned forward, a gun in his hand. He placed it at the base of the young pilot’s skull.
“You will continue flying this aircraft, son,” he ordered, his voice loud and strong.
Ella took that second to jerk up and knock Adams’ gun from his hand, sending it to the floor of the aircraft. Hector, who’d been dozing jerked awake and made an attempt to restrain her. Hector’s bulk worked against him as he didn’t have ample room to move. Ella grabbed the gun even as Adams grabbed a handful of her hair. She fired the weapon back at him and missed. She fired again and missed before Hector knocked the gun from her hand and finally restrained her.
She grimaced at the smell of body odor as the big man’s arms squeezed the breath from her body. She saw stars and couldn’t breathe. She actually felt a rib crack under the pressure. Suddenly, at Adam’s command, his hold lessened. Ella knew, however, the man would take pleasure in killing her. Of that, she had no doubt.
“That was stupid, Ella. You’re just a weak, pathetic woman. Did you really think you could get away?” Adams laughed, shaking his head, amazed at the audacity of Ella’s attempt to escape.
“Sir,” the pilot shouted, “We’re losing altitude. The fuel gauged indicates we’re losing fuel rapidly.”
“You fucking bitch!” Adams growled, backhanding her.
Ella smiled through the pain. They were going to crash, she thought, as the helicopter began to descend rapidly. She was going to die. At least she would be taking this crew with her, giving Parker and the rest of her friends a means for survival. She would see her father and mother again. A sense of calm came over her, and in that moment, she found the peace she hadn’t had in the last year. As the helicopter went down among the trees, Ella didn’t curse or scream; she simply sat in stoic silence.
She came back to the present with a weak smile on her face. She made her way over to the Lieutenant. Using her uninjured arm, she tugged and pulled until she was able to flip him over. Blood trickled from his mouth, and his nose was slightly angled. A piece of metal protruded from his abdomen. Normally not a violent person, Ella smiled in satisfaction. He wasn’t going anywhere. She turned to leave.
“Help me…” Adams whispered, causing Ella to turn and look down at him.
Was he serious? Of course, he was. Did this man, who’d tortured her friends, assaulted and finally kidnapped her, think she would have mercy on him? He was out of his ever loving mind. Ella was a good person, but she wasn’t that good of a person. She wasn’t about to take pity on this man.
“That’s not going to happen,” Ella smiled down at the man, enjoying his pain. He’d killed Carlos, her friend Dan, and countless other people who wouldn’t do his bidding. He was a monster, and as much as she believed in second chances, he deserved none. Her grandpa had been fond of saying Sometimes, you just have to cut bait. This was one of those times.
She looked around, and spying
the handgun Adams had been carrying several feet away, Ella hurried to retrieve it. As she retrieved the weapon and looked down at Adams, she felt no sympathy for the man. Nothing. Could she do it? Could she end the man right here and now?
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Hector growled from behind her. Ella turned slightly and saw the big man had stealthily move up behind her, pain contorting his features from his own injuries. He had a weapon pointed at her head and motioned with it for her to drop her own. She turned her back to him and looked down at Adams who looked up at her with a smile on his face.
“Ella and Parker—always losing. How does it feel?” he bit out through his pain, smiling a tight little smile.
“Who said I lose?” Ella asked, pulling the trigger and watching in sick fascination as a hole appeared in Adam’s forehead. She didn’t care what Hector did, she thought, as she felt a pain at the back of her head and lost consciousness. She was ready for death.
Chapter 2: Ground Zero
Specimen number 212 was just a blob of red tissue and bone. Eli looked closer at its roommate who was feasting on the remains. The white mouse’s fur was bloodstained, and its eyes a disturbing shade of red. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the surviving mouse had killed its roommate and had reverted to cannibalism. Eli walked down the small hallway in the lab and observed that the remainder of the ten cages held similar results. This did not bode well.
“So, how’s the research coming along?” a voice asked behind him. Groaning silently, Eli turned and plastered a fake smile on his face. His boss returned the smile and arched an eyebrow reminding Eli he had a question to answer.
“These results aren’t good. The specimens are exhibiting an odd side effect,” Eli explained pointing at one of the cages.
“Hmm. So the side effect is cannibalism. How very interesting,” Dr. Wilson McKierney muttered in a slight Scottish accent. “Get me a new specimen. I want to see this firsthand.”
