Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay by Gordon Carroll (good books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

“No, of course not, I wouldn’t want you to. I just want to be able to take a look at the car to see if I caused the damage or not. If you tell me where the limousine is, I’ll swing by and take a look.”

“They already returned it. It’s here on the lot. Do you have our address?”

“Yes, I do. How late will you be open?”

“Until ten o’clock, sir.”

I looked at my watch, nine-fifty; no way I could make it. “I’ll stop by tomorrow. Thank you for your help, Kendra.” I had the car. Next step was to see if they left any evidence. That plus find out who rented it.

Finishing the soldier for hire list, none of them matched Mr. Spock or the other Men In Black I had seen, I pushed away from my computer and rubbed my eyes. Hey, maybe Spock was really Tommy Lee Jones in disguise.

I took out the three driver’s licenses I’d kept from the skater punks who tried to nab me and checked their home addresses. All were local.

I fed Pilgrim, threw a steak on the gas grill for myself, and made a salad with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and thousand-island dressing. I found some rolls in the pantry and took two out. They didn’t smell moldy, but they were a little stale. I nuked them for about twenty seconds and presto, fresh again. Modern technology. Captain Kirk would be proud. While eating, I read another two chapters of the newest Clancy novel (he’s long since dead but the books they just keep a coming). I cleaned my dishes, looked at the time — ten-twenty — told Pilgrim to stay, went to my car, called Max, and started down the long, winding road that is my driveway. I got on C-470, southbound, which quickly turned east. I was headed toward Aurora, that’s where Pimple Face lives.

Forty minutes later I pulled up across from his house. The streets were pretty much deserted except for the occasional clot of street punks that prowled the alleys and dark corners. This is the nasty part of town where hyenas run in packs, there’s safety in numbers, and woe to the poor drunk or lost tourist who stumbles across their path.

I spied the landscape, making a mental picture, then headed back home. Sleep was rare for me these days, what with the dreams coming as they did, but I had a long day ahead of me so I would have to chance it.

I parked in the garage atop my mountain at one-thirty-seven in the morning and was under the covers of my bed by two. Sleep took its time in coming, but when it did, it didn’t come alone, the dreams came with it.

20

In my dream they were alive. They’re always alive in my dreams — at first. They’ve come every night for the past three months. I’m afraid they will drive me crazy. Maybe they will. Maybe they already had.

We were at Clement Park, Jolene and I sitting on a bench, the sun high and gently bright, shining down on the perfect family huddled within its penumbra. My three-year old daughter, Marla, was soaking wet and laughing at the thin jets of water that shot from the fountain holes punched in the concrete.

“Daddy, watch me,” she said in her sweet, little girl’s voice, the end of “watch” slightly lisped. And I wanted to watch her, but at the same time I couldn’t bear to pull my eyes away from my wife’s face. She was beautiful, and it had been so long.

I wanted to tell her how much I missed them.

Somewhere close, a radio played CCR singing Bad Moon on the Rise. I felt the pain in my throat, like a scorpion’s sting, bright and hot.

I couldn’t speak. The song played louder.

“Daddy save me.”

I dragged my eyes from Jolene’s face, tears running down my cheeks. Please, Lord, no, not again.

The patterned jets of water from the fountains shot out of their holes, only the water burned red, the color of blood. They blasted up and over, covering Marla, drenching her in scarlet. I tried to move, to get to my feet, anything, but the pain exploded into numbness, racing through my arms and down my legs.

Credence blared; singing that they hoped I had my things together. But under the words and music I could hear just a ghostly trace of The Beetles song “Across the Universe”, singing about how their world would never change”. The sound of it made my blood run cold.

I heard the horrible carnage of contorting metal, shattering glass.

Marla danced beneath the crimson streams, her smiling baby’s teeth stained in the color of violence. I had to get her out of there before…

The numbness was all consuming. It stole my strength, my will, my soul.

“Daddy…”

I looked to Jolene, but she was gone. The jets of blood changed to twisting tendrils of fire. I saw Marla’s hair crisp.

“DADDY?”

I screamed, ran for her, caught her up by the shoulders. But it was no longer my Marla. The dead thing in my hands was Lisa Franklin’s daughter, Amber. I awoke, my lungs on fire. The mixture of songs still rolling sickly in my head.

I dropped into my pillow, closed my eyes, and cried until I fell back to sleep.

21

Max

Max heard the Alpha cry out. He was up and moving before the sound faded. At the door to the Alpha’s room he paused. There were no more cries of alarm, just a quiet sobbing that grated on Max’s nerves.

It sounded like weakness.

He sensed no danger here. Max turned and padded to the doggy door that led to the garage. A twin of the pet door was cut into a sidewall of the garage. Max passed through silently and breathed deeply of the cool night air. A thousand scents hit him: Larkspur, Geranium, Field Aster, Gambel oak, pinon-juniper, mountain-mahogany, sagebrush, squirrel, rabbit, fox, prairie dog and something… just a hint… here and gone