“How long have you been working on this? This is amazing.” Sher reached over to hug Bailey but he slipped off the bed with Laylea.
“Mom, it’s not a trick.”
“Of course it isn’t. It takes a lot of work to teach a dog how to do that.”
“Sher, is it really possible to teach a dog to do that?”
Sher smiled. “Of course. It’s basic conditioning. You say mother when she gets near me and give her treats and praise and eventually you can condition her to run to me whenever you say mother.”
Laylea’s tail drooped. She leaned her head against Bailey’s shoulder.
Clark looked over at Bailey and Laylea. “It seems so amazing.”
Sher agreed. “Oh it is. She is a very smart dog and your son is the most patient kid in the world. But it’s still just a dog.”
Laylea’s jaw dropped at the pronoun. She sang her frustration just as Bailey screamed.
The lamp on Sher’s side table exploded.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bailey stared in shock at the lamp. Laylea stared at Bailey. Clark watched his wife reach up and pull a shard of pottery from her forehead. Blood poured down her face.
Bailey ran from the room.
Clark chased him. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Bailey. Please come back. Come here.” He wrapped his arms around boy and dog, squeezing them until Laylea squeaked. “Sorry.”
“I’m not that patient, Dad. And she’s not just a dog.”
“Okay. Come on back and show us.”
“The lamp.”
“Don’t worry about the lamp. Your mom once accidentally made her brother jump in the Atlantic Ocean. In February. And she liked her brother.”
Bailey sniffed. “I liked the lamp.”
“No you didn’t.” Clark shook his head. “You have better taste than that.”
“I can hear you!” Sher hollered from the bedroom.
Clark saw a smile crack on Bailey’s face. He led him back to the bedroom. Sher was scooping the last shards of lamp and bulb into the bathroom trash. Her face showed no signs of injury except a trace of blood in her hair. Clark put the can away as Sher grabbed the bathmat and covered the fragments too small to pick up by hand.
“Sit, Bailey.” She followed her own orders. “Talk to us.”
Bailey took a deep breath. He looked at the mat and at the empty space on his mother’s table, now holding only her bookmark. He let the breath out and tried again. “But wait. There’s more.”
He set Laylea down on the bed and crouched beside her. He picked up his dad’s book and flipped through the pages.
“Ready, Lady Laylee?”
Laylea barked, intent on the book.
Bailey ran his finger along the words but he didn’t read them out loud. After a couple of lines, Laylea barked. She ran down the chair and out to Bailey’s room. Bailey sat back down on the bed with the book in front of him. Woodford grunted in complaint so Bailey ran both hands through his fur. Clark looked over Bailey’s shoulder.
“Baseball.”
As he read it Laylea ran back in with a blue racquet ball in her mouth. She climbed chair to bed and dropped the ball by Sher. Then she returned to Bailey’s side, leaning on his thigh with one paw like she was bellied up to the bar. He ran his finger along the words. She barked.
Laylea clambered up onto Sher and leaned over to the bedside table.
Bailey deflated. “I don’t know what she’s doing.”
Sher picked up the illicit bookmark, a memorial card from her grandmother’s funeral twenty years ago. She handed it to Clark. Her Grams had been an animal lover and the prayer card’s image was of St. Francis of Assisi.
Clark read over Bailey’s shoulder, “The word is saint.”
Laylea returned to the book. Bailey laughed at the next word she picked. Laylea ran over to the mirror in the corner while Clark read aloud, “Dog.”
He scanned the page as Laylea climbed back up to the bed. When she got to Bailey, Clark pointed at a word. She looked up at him and then went over and sat in Sher’s lap.
“Doctor.”
Bailey handed the book to his mother. “Here Mom, you do it.”
Sher turned a page and ran her finger along the words. Cujo knew he was too old to chase rabbits. Laylea barked. She climbed out of Sher’s lap and got Clark to crane her down. She left the room a little slowly. Bailey watched her sadly. He adored his mother but he wished she had more imagination.
Clark perched on the bed beside Sher. “What’s the word?”
“Rabbits.” Sher shook her head. “I don’t think she can do this one.”
Bailey whispered. “Mom, she is more than just a very smart dog.”
“I know you want to think so, Bailey. But when you were three you thought your clown doll was talking to you at night.”
“Mom! I’m thirteen.”
“Bailey. I’m on your side.” Clark got up and rubbed his son’s shoulder as he went to his dresser. “Sher, I think you’re gonna have to shut off the scientist who knows the facts of life. Our dog is reading these words off the page. The facts of life may have changed.”
Laylea stood in the doorway. She would normally have felt the tension in the room and run in doing something silly to break it up. But she knew this time she was the cause.
“Come on in, Lee.” At Sher’s urging, Laylea padded over to her side of the bed, dragging the slipper. Sher picked it up.
“Bugs Bunny.”
Clark exhaled a stuttering laugh. He came back from his dresser with a pencil and a couple slips of paper in his hands. Scooping Laylea up he cuddled her for a moment. “Good girl. You are so smart.” He set her in the middle of the bed with the slips of paper on either side. “We’re gonna ask you some questions, okay? And you’ll…” Before he could finish, Laylea touched her paw to the slip on her right. The slip read Yes.
Clark caught his breath.
Bailey laughed at him. “What were you gonna say, Dad? One bark for yes, two for no?”
Laylea put her paw on the Yes slip and barked. She put her paw on the No slip and barked twice.
She sat waiting for the questions but there were none for a while. The room fell silent but for Woodford’s snoring. Sher hid her face in her hands.
“Are all dogs like you?” Clark blurted out the question.
Laylea quickly tapped the left slip and barked twice.
“Do you know what you are?” he asked.
Laylea tilted her head at the question.
Clark yelled out, “Is the sky blue?”
One bark, right slip.
“Is grass green? Excepting Kentucky.”
One bark, right slip.
“Is Bailey a girl?”
Left slip, two barks.
Clark clasped his hands. He broke the pencil. “Are you happy?”
Right slip, one bark, singing.
“Am I the best dad?”
Singing, right slip, dancing.
Sher found her voice. “Am I a good doctor?”
Laylea stopped dancing. She stood looking at Sher. Then she picked up the Yes slip and carried it over to the mom’s lap. One bark. She dragged out the picture book from under Clark’s pillow. It was open to the last page but Laylea flipped it shut with her nose. Laylea tagged the cover and looked up at Sher. Are You My Mother?
Sher gathered Laylea up in her arms and barked. Once. When Sher could breathe again, she looked up at her husband. “I think we’re gonna want to reread that letter she came with.”
Clark nodded his head. “Yeah.”
Clark pulled the letter out of his go bag. He invited Laylea to sit in his lap and followed along with his finger as he read.
“Dear Hillens,
I met you several years ago. You won’t remember the incident but your kindness saved my life. I hope that your kindness can extend to my little Laylea as well. There is an evil man who would do experiments on Laylea and her brothers.”
Laylea barked several times. She ran
over to Bailey and looked off at Woodford. She tilted her head at Clark.
Sher reached over to her and scratched her ears. “Not Bailey and Woodford, Laylea. I think she means your littermates. You had biological brothers who must be like you.”
Bailey blurted out, “She means the creepy guy who came looking for Laylea that spring, when she hid.”
Sher’s face went hard. “You might be right, Bailey. Walter. He definitely wasn’t a good guy.”
“How did Laylea recognize him?” Bailey squeezed his sister when she shivered. “You knew to hide from him.”
Sher hushed him. “Clark, read on.”
“Because of this, they have spent their lives thus far in a basement not seeing anything of the world. Two days ago this man found our sanctuary.”
Bailey nodded his head. “She saw him.”
“It’s more likely she smelled him.”
Laylea barked. She waved at Clark with her right paw.
“We escaped but I dare not foster any of my pups together or to people that know me. I know Laylea would be safe with you and that you are up to the challenges that raising her will present. She is a very special little girl.”
“Yes, she is.” Sher wiped gunk from the corner of Laylea’s eye.
“Duh.”
“No shit, Sherlock”
“Clark!”
Clark smirked sideways at Bailey who hid his face.
“Please take care of her. Though I am heartbroken to leave my puppy, I am comforted knowing she will be as happy as Bailey and Woodford were when I knew them. She is six weeks old and just weaned. With Great Appreciation for whatever help you can give her, Mama”
Sher raised her hand. “So question number one; Mama? Like I’m her mother or like,” she flipped through the picture book’s pages to the dog, “her Mother. And if it’s her mother, who did she get to write the letter?”
“Or maybe she’s a scientist who bred them for Walter to do experiments on,” Bailey chimed in.
“Or maybe she helped genetically engineer them,” Sher shot back.
Clark put his hands up. “Regardless of how much information we drag out of this note, I think the important thing is not where she came from but how we go from treating her like an adored pet to treating her like a sapient being.”
Laylea tilted her head at the exact moment Bailey raised his hand.
“It means, how do we go from who’s a good widdle puppy dog. Do you want a treat? Do you want a treat? to I’m proud of you, pup. Would you prefer a Milkbone or Pupparoni?”
Laylea barked the cadence of Milkbone as Bailey said it.
Clark waved them away. “Yes, I know she would prefer a Milkbone. It was just an example.”
“Oh gods,” Sher sat up. “She can spell T R E A T.”
Laylea barked.
Bailey added, “And W A L K and D I N N E R and P L A N E R I D E.”
“Okay, but hold on.” Clark stopped them. “My real point was that I have not slept very well camping without my apparently genius watchdog. I’m tired and we’re not gonna be able to figure everything out tonight.”
“Or ever,” Sher put in.
“Yes,” Clark continued. “But we’ll think better after some sleep. We’re all home tomorrow, right?”
They each confirmed. Laylea with one bark.
“Then let’s go to bed. How much more can the world change in eight hours?”
Bailey and Laylea kissed their parents. Bailey grabbed his Bugs Bunny slipper and the books. Laylea climbed all over Woodford in her usual goodnight ritual while Bailey scratched the old dog. And they went to crash in their room, Laylea listening avidly while Bailey told her all about the camping trip until they both fell asleep.
Clark and Sher didn’t fall asleep for hours.
When Sunday morning rolled around, Clark and Sher were still talking. When later Sunday morning rolled around they were jolted from bed by Bailey’s screams.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A rainbow of file folders flew to the floor in a crash with the stash of chewing gum. Dozens of photos of black, brown, and fawn colored canines made a taunting river of failure for Walter to wade through. He ignored the pictures. He scooped the remains of the shattered Oogies coffee mug into Trask’s wastepaper basket and fished a stick of black jack out of the mess.
“Not what you expected?” Trask asked standing unmoved at the window as she watched the fiasco unfold far below.
Guards flanked the yard though none moved. She had not given word for them to interrupt and so they wouldn’t. Her four CF, three new and one check-in remained in the yard as well. Two of the new soldiers continued their training assignments. 343 had scaled the Sycamore and hid in its branches. Trask had a camera feed of those areas of the yard not visible from their leaded window but she didn’t bother checking on 343’s position. She had diverted funds from her secondary testing team to build an electrified field out three feet from the window. If 343 climbed too close, accidentally or otherwise, he’d soon fall from the tree. If he survived, he’d have to be reconditioned.
Her third newly processed subject watched Walter’s maimed volunteer, Sammy, and her attacker. Black eyes sparked out of a dark face painted with even darker tattoos. He was aware and ready to react but otherwise appeared neither repulsed nor enchanted by the human being writhing on the grass at his feet.
Sammy threw herself at the bleeding body. As long teeth descended from her human jaws, she buried her face in the thigh of the man who had cut off her arm. Biting into his neck would have held more of the fantasy element expected from Walter’s experiments but the salamander-imbued woman had already chopped the head off of Walter’s star subject and thrown it at their beautiful leaded window. A streak of blood and pus to the left mirrored the green and brown patterns of the Sycamore branches pushing against the window to Trask’s right.
After a subdued moment dominated by deep sucking noises from Sammy, she tore a chunk of flesh off her attacker’s thigh and split the air with a feral scream of power and pain. She leapt thirty feet away from her victim and disappeared into the maze of bushes and trees in the center of the courtyard.
“Why don’t they shoot?” Walter begged around three sticks of gum.
“I don’t let my forces have guns on property unless they’re on the range.”
“What about the guards?”
“But would you want them to shoot?” Trask turned away from the entertainment to see her office mate huddled in the corner farthest from the window and video screens. “We’re learning so much.”
“I know nothing.”
“I’m tempted to believe your new mantra. How many different animals did you splice into that woman’s DNA?”
Another wet splat against the window dropped Walter to the floor. Trask’s heels clicked evenly as she circled the desk to retrieve her sweet tea. She selected a red pen from the top desk drawer with her free hand and opened the display board just long enough to cross off a number.
“You didn’t see the head. How do you know which soldier it was?”
“I don’t.” Trask set the red pen in the center of Walter’s blotter. “I’m making a guess. You’re the one who told me I need to have more fun with my job.”
“Why don’t you order the guards to take her down? She’s killing your CF.”
“If my forces cannot defend themselves, I want my scientists to see what happens when they fail. This will be much more effective than losing a CF in the mountains and simply never seeing them again.” Trask strolled back to the entertainment. “Ooh, her face has turned pink. If you want to save your bear cub, you should activate the guard yourself.”
“That’s right.” Walter pulled himself up. “I can activate them.”
Trask sat on the window seat. “What is going on with you? I appreciated that nice long trip you took to central Mexico. And Dr. Jones has developed new focus since you stopped taking her on puppy-hunting trips. But you’ve lost your annoying chipper and I find this
helpless you irritates me even more, if that is possible.”
Three quick pops followed by a scream stopped Trask’s lecture.
“Oh dear. She’s going after the guards now.”
“What’s the body count?”
Trask scanned the courtyard out the window and via the monitors. “I can’t see your little bear cub boy but that’s the bat girl’s leg hanging from the tree there. Can’t imagine she survived that excision. Of course your komodo man got it first. Sammy showed amazing speed there. I would love to learn more about that. I’m extremely disappointed in 433 and 425. The four erasure team have earned the honor of clean-up duty. 343 is safe in our sycamore—or not so safe.” Trask took a step away from the sparks flashing off the window. “Plus the two guards. That’s a total of four subjects plus one collateral and two employees. So far.”
Walter pushed off the wall. He kicked aside the pictures and raced to the alert button.
“She’s growing gills, Walter.” Trask returned to her chair. “I imagine she’ll drown in just a bit.”
The female figure had ripped away her standard issue black t-shirt and stolen a bloody green snap-front shirt from one of Trask’s CF. Beneath the open folds three slashes on either side of her rib cage grew fuzzy red tendrils while the woman scratched at her throat with one hand and one sucker-toed paw. Her pink face turned a deep shade of red with her mouth twisting open, gasping to pull in oxygen.
The black tattooed CF appeared in front of her. Her gaze drifted from the window to his illustrated face. The two volunteers stood in tableau for two minutes. Walter’s hand hovered over the alert button. In a flash too quick to be seen except in digital replay, the CF snapped Sammy’s neck.
Walter hit the button. Walter hit the window. Walter raced for the red pen waiting on his side of the desk. He threw it at the cabinet behind Trask’s head screaming in eerie imitation of Sammy’s earlier cry.
“I know nothing!”
Trask’s chair clattered to the ground. She gripped the edge of the desk, nearly shoving it out of her way as she circled to him. He backed away but she grabbed his bare forearms. Her perfectly manicured nails dug into his flesh as she demanded his gaze.
WereHuman - The Witch's Daughter: Consortium Battle book 1 (Wyrdos) Page 19
