FreeForm: An Alien Invasion Romance Series (FreeForm Series Book 1)

by Orrin Jason Bradford

  "Damn right you're going to pay me,” she chided back. "Any more like this and you won't be able to pay me enough to come in."

  Walking into the prep room, Allan slipped out of his gown and, folding it into a ball, tossed it in the general direction of the clothes hamper.

  "If you don't mind, how about going up front and let Alice know Molly is doing fine. I'll be up in a few minutes after I clean her up a bit. Tell Alice we'll be keeping Molly overnight but to call us in the morning around nine. No, better make that ten. Considering the hour, I might be in a little later than usual."

  "Do you think we can keep you out of here until at least after eight?" Dawn asked. The entire staff was always giving their boss a hard time about the long hours he kept.

  "Well, we'll see,” he answered as he turned to walk back into surgery then stuck his head back out the door. "Remember, the pups were born dead, but Molly is doing great. Tell her she can come back and say good night to her in about ten minutes. Then come back and help me get her off the table."

  Allan walked back into the surgery room, untying his mask as he went. He tossed the disposable cap and mask in the general direction of the trash can and watched as they fluttered in the air like two wounded ducks, then fell short of the can by about a foot. As he stood looking at them lying on the floor, he could hear Laura's voice reverberating in his mind. Although his wife had been dead for four years, she was never far from his thoughts.

  "Allan Pritchard, if you aren't the messiest man I have ever seen. Why in the world would God be so cruel as to have me fall in love with such a messy man?"

  "Probably has something to do with keeping balance in the world, sweetie,” he’d answer back. "If we were all as neat and perfect as you, He'd not have any fun watching us."

  Allan caught himself staring at the cap and mask lying next to the trash can. Four years since the fire that took Laura and Todd and their presence was still so strong. When will it end? He wondered. Would the pain of his loss ever leave him alone? When would he stop hearing their voices and seeing their faces every time he missed a trash can, or cleaned the dishes, or did any of a hundred other mundane, day-to-day activities? How long would he have to detour around Waynesboro Elementary School whenever he traveled north out of town?

  He strolled over to the debris lying on the floor, picked it up, and placed it in the can. That's for you Laura, to let you know I still love you. As he straightened up, his eyes fell on the delivery box. He wasn't surprised to find three of the white sausages had already turned a pale gray and were no longer moving.

  It's just as well, he thought. It saves me the trouble of figuring out how to put them to sleep. But as he continued to stare at the box, he noticed something about the three that were still alive that had escaped his first inspection. Towards the tapered end, what he imagined was the head end, were two dark splotches, less than a centimeter across. Allan bent lower to get a better look. Sure enough, each of the living larvae had the marks, but they were missing from the dead ones. What could it mean?

  The scientist in him began speculating. It could mean that is the hind end, and those are developing gonads indicating that those three are males, he thought. It would make sense the males would live longer than the females, he kidded with himself. But no, he was pretty certain that was the front end, assuming the front end would be the one attached to the uterine lining for nourishment.

  Ok, if he assumed the dots were at the front end, what did they represent? Of course, he thought, those must be primitive eye spots. But if that was the case, then why didn't the other three larvae have them?

  He took one of the towels from the pile and used it to pick up one of the dead larvae. For some reason, he was not anxious to handle them without something between him and their white skin. He turned it over in his hands, confirming there were no marks. Inspecting the other two revealed the same information.

  "Very interesting, Doctor,” he said softly to himself. "But what does it mean?"

  As though to answer, a low moan startled him so much he almost dropped the larva before realizing the sound came from Molly. He took the three dead larvae and placed them in a plastic trash bag. He started to tie it shut but stopped. He still needed to decide what to do with the other three. Molly moaned again to remind him that she needed his attention first.

  Allan placed the trash bag next to the box and began untying Molly from the surgery table. Laying her on her side, he placed a few clean sponges against her incision to absorb the seeping blood. He stood there for a couple of minutes, stroking the soft fur behind her ear.

  "Poor Molly, you're going to wake up expecting to be a mother, and you’re going to be awfully disappointed. I guess you'll just have to give all that love to those kids out there. Maybe they can be your pups instead."

  He heard Dawn come back into the treatment room adjacent to the surgery suite. "Here comes the cavalry to help this old doctor get your large carcass off the table and into a cage. Lord help me to not throw my back out again."

  Dawn pushed the surgery door open and propped it with the rubber wedge. "Are you sure you don't want me to get those boys back here to help us with this?" she asked. Dawn knew the long history of her doctor's back ailments.

  “No. I don't want to take any chance of them seeing those things." He pointed to the box and bag. "They'd have fun scaring the dickens out of their mom. I promise to be careful and to bend at the knees. Let's just put her in the recovery cage in the treatment room. We can move her to a run in the morning when she's awake enough to walk out there on her own."

  After moving the half-awake dog to her cage, Allan straightened up slowly and was relieved to feel only a mild twinge in his back. It'd be a little sore in the morning but nothing he couldn't handle.

  "I see half of them are already dead,” Dawn remarked as she walked into the surgery room to clean up.

  "Yeah. I doubt the other three will be far behind."

  "You are going to put them to sleep, aren't you?" Dawn said with a note of surprise in her voice.

  Allan hesitated before answering. He hated to lie to Dawn, but putting animals to sleep was one thing he hadn't been able to do since Laura and Todd's accident.

  Dawn walked over to him and touched his arm. "You want me to do it?" She asked in a soft voice. He felt her shudder as she said it.

  "No. It's all right. You just go on home and get whatever rest you can with what's left of the night. Marva can clean up in the morning. I'll leave her a note."

  Dawn stood there for a couple of seconds, her hand still resting on his arm, as though trying to think of something else to say. Then she sighed softly, and dropped her arm.

  "You're the boss, Doc. Don't stay here the rest of the night cleaning up though. I know your tricks. I'll be mad as a wet hornet if I find out that's what you did."

  He smiled at her. "I promise to be a good little boy and go home and get some sleep. You run on home."

  Allan started back into surgery then remembered the Parkers.

  "Did they want to see Molly?" He asked.

  "No. They said if she was still sleeping they'd just wait until morning. They were real tired too."

  "Good night, Dawn, and thanks — really."

  "Any time, Doc. Just not for a couple more days, okay?”

  He laughed. "I promise."

  After Dawn left, Allan walked back into surgery and gazed down at the three living lumps. They continued to pulsate and squirm next to each other just like three newborn pups.

  But they're not pups, he thought. They're probably not even mammals. God only knows what they are. Probably would grow up to be giant flies. They'd be frustrated all their lives because they'd never be able to find a large enough heap of cow dung to fly around. He smiled at his own ridiculous thought.

  He knelt down in front of the box and felt another warning twinge from his back. He continued to stare at them for a couple of minutes. Finally, he reached out with his hand. What would they feel like? They'd been
warm when he'd removed them from the womb, but that would have been expected. The womb was a nicely regulated incubator. His hand continued to close the gap. Two inches from the closest one, he stopped as a shudder formed between his shoulder blades.

  Oh, go ahead. Don't be silly. He touched it and was surprised to find it felt like a hairless puppy. It was warm and soft. Well, it sure the hell isn't cuddly, he thought. But two out of three isn't bad.

  Allan watched in amazement as the lump turned its "head" in the direction of his hand. It knew he was there. It was responding to his touch. He suddenly realized what it was looking for. The tapered end sucked in and out, looking like a fish out of water. It brushed against his hand then reached for his small finger.

  It was trying to suckle his finger! He jerked his hand back and cracked it against the surgery table above his head.

  "Sorry guy. I'm not your mamma. I don't know who is, but I know it isn't me."

  Allan watched the three small lumps of life as they continued to wiggle next to each other. Could they be puppies that simply hadn't fully developed? The thought was ridiculous. As much as he had hated embryology class in vet school and despite the number of hours he'd spent asleep in it, he'd learned enough to know there was no larval stage in the dog's fetal development.

  Well, really the choice is simple, he thought. I can either put the tiny creatures to sleep and stay up the rest of the night with a guilty conscience, or I can let them live and spend the evening trying to figure out how to keep them alive. Either way, it didn't look like sleep was on the agenda, but as he considered the alternative he knew which one he'd choose.

  Whatever they were, they had made it this far, and they had every right to live. If they died, it wouldn't be at his hands. And until he knew more about them, he'd treat them like three orphan puppies. He couldn't see putting them back with Molly. His entire staff would probably quit on him if they walked into the clinic in the morning to three eight-inch maggots suckling on a hundred-pound hound.

  He could give them some of Molly's milk though. She had plenty and if they had been pups, that first milk would be important. Dr. Pritchard walked back into the treatment room where Molly lay on her side in her cage, snoring softly. He took a small bowl from the cabinet and began milking the thick colostrum from Molly's glands. She opened one big brown eye and stared without much enthusiasm at him, then closed her eye and went back to sleep. He collected enough to give each of the pups at least a couple of feedings. He noticed as he collected the milk, he had suddenly shifted how he thought about them. They were no longer unknown lumps but had suddenly become puppies.

  "Very strange puppies, but puppies,” he muttered to himself as he poured the warm milk into a baby bottle. If Dawn comes back and finds me feeding these little things, she'll probably have me committed and I wouldn't argue with her.

  He walked back into surgery with the bottle. Would he have to hold them in his hands to get them to nurse? The thought made him feel a little queasy. Although he'd decided they should have a chance at life, they were still repulsive. He picked up the towel lying next to the box and picked the largest one up with the towel, placing the nurser in front of its "head." Immediately the suckling motions resumed as the white lump of life tried to drain the bottle.

  Amazed at the appetite and the volume of milk it could hold, he realized he'd have to milk Molly again if he was going to give them two feedings of the colostrum as he'd planned. When the bottle was about a third empty, he placed the pup back into the box and picked up the next one. It also tried to suck the bottle dry, but when he picked up the third one, the smallest of the litter, it refused to take the nipple.

  "Not a good sign, little one,” he said as he tried to stick the nipple in its small orifice. "Let's see, I do have the right end, don't I?"

  He checked and found the eye spots. That wasn't the problem. He continued for another ten minutes with little results. Finally, frustrated with the battle, he took an infant feeding tube from the next room and fed the remaining milk through the tube.

  "If you think I'm going to feed you in that manner every time, you better rethink it,” he told the tiny pup as he placed it back with the other two. "You’re too ugly for such special treatment."

  He walked back into the treatment room and glanced at the wall clock. Almost 2:30. He rubbed his tired eyes. With a little luck, he could still get a couple hours of sleep. He quickly milked another bottle of colostrum from Molly then grabbed a couple more towels and a heating pad, placing everything in the box with the pups. As he started to leave, he noticed the garbage bag with the three dead pups. He picked it up and dropped it into the special can reserved for deceased pets for animal control to pick up.

  It didn't occur to him until late the next morning that it would have been a good idea to save the bodies for autopsy, but by then animal control had already made their rounds.

  Biogentrix

  Tuesday, June 8

  Allan slept a dreamless five hours and awoke groggy and grumpy. He stumbled into the bathroom and was in midstream of emptying his bladder when his eyes fell on the three white sausages lying in the box next to the tub.

  He staggered back in shock, the stream of warm urine spraying the carpet next to the john. Allan grabbed one of the spare towels he had brought home from the clinic and cleaned up the mess. As he did so, he remembered the previous evening's occurrences. Filling the sink with cold water, he soaked his head until he was able to open his eyes without them crossing. He hated mornings. A large part of staying up at all hours was because he knew when he finally gave in to sleep, it would mean going through the hell of waking up.

  It hadn't been that bad when Laura and Todd were around. Todd was usually the first one to wake up. Allan remembered many mornings when his young son would sneak into his parents' bedroom and slide beneath the covers between the two of them. He missed those mornings. He missed a lot of things about those days.

  When he could hold his breath no longer, Allan lifted his head out of the water and felt a familiar twinge of pain course down his lower back and into his right thigh. Damn, not yet forty and already falling apart. Life isn't fair, he thought, then chuckled. Typical early morning thoughts. If any of my clients saw me in the morning before I'm fully awake, they'd think I was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Could this be the kindly Doc Pritchard, who coos over the puppies and kittens and extends credit to everyone who needs it?

  Allan shook his head, sending tiny water droplets spraying around the room, then reached for a fresh towel, being careful to pick up one of his own and not one from the clinic to save him from the displeasure of picking animal hair out of his mouth the rest of the morning.

  He bent over slowly, partially supporting himself with his hands on his knees, and gazed into the box. He immediately realized the smallest pup had died during the night. He wasn't surprised.

  "I wouldn't be surprised if they all croaked,” he muttered. Well, good morning Mr. Sunshine. Aren't we in a great mood this morning? He decided to take a shower before feeding the remaining two pups. In his present mood, he'd probably choke them to death. A shower and a cup of coffee had wondrous effects on his morning temperament.

  Twenty minutes later as Allan returned to the box, he noticed the remaining two pups didn't look the same.

  "Why I'll be . . . " he said as he set his coffee cup on the back of the john and bent over to pick up the larger pup. It took him a couple of seconds before he realized he had picked it up without a towel, but it didn't seem to matter nearly as much now since the small lump had transformed itself during the night. It no longer looked like a giant maggot. It now had features that suggested it really was a puppy. Not a normal pup by any means since none of the features were fully formed, but where the dark eye spots had been before were now tiny slits, and he thought he could make out two tiny holes where the nose should be, and the mouth had shifted to one side.

  Allan picked up the second pup and studied it. It too had altered its structure durin
g the night although not as completely as the larger one. Were those tiny nubs at the tip of the head going to be ears? The body itself hadn't changed as much as the head, but even there it looked like it had been molded. No legs, but on the larger one there were tiny bumps where it looked like legs could be forming.

  He placed them back in their box and walked to the kitchen for their milk. Fascinating, he thought, shaking his head. Whatever the tiny creatures were, they were altering their shape at a miraculous rate.

  As he returned from the kitchen, Allan stopped for a moment in the den. It was one of his favorite rooms in the sprawling log cabin, probably because of the rows of pictures that lined the walls. Each one showed Todd and Laura at some special moment: Todd’s first birthday; Todd swinging on the swing set that Santa had given him when he was four and that had put his young parents in hock for months; Todd going off on his first day of school. Only one room had more pictures in it -- Todd's room. It was Todd's room even though neither Todd nor anyone else had slept in it since the accident. The den would be a better place than the bathroom to keep the pups. It was warmer and less drafty. Allan pushed a recliner a foot or two farther away from the wood stove to make room for the box and tossed a couple new logs onto the coals. The nights and mornings had been nippy even for early April. For some reason it seemed very important that the remaining two pups stay alive. Suddenly the morning didn't look quite so grim.

  After feeding the pups, Allan placed their box in its new location next to the stove and realized his stomach was urging him to the kitchen for breakfast. He glanced at his watch. Almost eight o'clock. Normally he'd be at the clinic by now reviewing the appointment and surgery books. Breakfast was not a normal part of his routine, but today was different in many ways. He grabbed the portable phone on his way to the front door. He punched in the speed-dial number to the clinic. Dawn answered the phone as he was bending down to pick up the paper, grunting as another shockwave reverberated down his back and right thigh.