Bitch: Puncture (book 2)

I loved Seattle. I loved the rain and the way it was overcast and cloudy all the time. We were very near the Canadian border and Granny’s daughters house lay on the border of a wild area. When we showed up, Granny’s daughter Denise was talking a mile a minute. She was lumbering around her pregnant belly to show off her little home. Wanting to impress Granny she showed her the converted garage that her husband Floyd, had finished. It was a few minutes before Granny told her daughter about me, but Apoc had slipped off into the forest before she got back to the truck to unload her bags. I didn’t see him go, but I could smell which direction he headed.

Denise was too involved with her pregnancy to do more than remark that I was a very unusual looking dog. Granny chuckled and told her daughter that she had no idea how special I was. And before Denise could follow that thought any further, she was off again on a baby related topic about jumpers and onesies and I just tuned out. The son-in-law Floyd was nice enough, but he was a mixture of exhausted and hyper-focused on Denise. His life had become work and then back to the baby on the way so he didn’t pay much attention to Granny and I was a distant fourth or fifth. I’m not sure he knew I was there most of the time.

Most days she spent the whole day in the main house while Floyd was at work. Granny would leave the television on in the converted garage to help “keep me company”. I didn’t see Apoc for almost a week. Floyd had added two large floor to ceiling windows to the back of the garage which looked out into the forest. I would sit behind the couch in the garage and just stare out into the misty green or watch the rivulets of water trickle down the glass.

I worried about Apoc. I wondered if he was okay. Mostly I just watched the trees in the gentle wind, and the misting rain. I sat in the evenings and watched the grey light turn dark. I saw him once in the twilight, still as a tree watching me. I nodded to him and he was gone.

Granny even expressed concern about Apoc. When she asked if I’d seen him I nodded. “Well I’ve been leaving food out for him, but it’s been untouched. So I was just getting a little worried. I guess he’s a wild’un so he can fend for hisself.” I nodded. She let me outside a few times a day, but I couldn’t smell Apoc there anymore. I went to where he’d been standing, but could find no trace of him. Maybe my eyes had played a trick on me after all, maybe I’d only seen what I wanted to see. I knew he didn’t want to live inside, it probably reminded him of a cage. Sometimes it felt like that to me to, it reminded me of my captivity with Shen and how after the initial feelings of fear under the great wide sky, how I’d come to feel free and even safe with no walls or roof over my head.

A strange sense of loneliness settled over me in those days left to myself and my thoughts. I realized that I had no one. And Apoc wasn’t really mine, even though he seemed to understand me, a fellow victim of Shen. He understood better than anyone what I’d gone though. I felt our connection stretching thinner and thinner. I wondered if I would ever see him again. After all this was my world, a house, a family... or at least some sort of warped in the mirror version of it. And Apoc, he wasn’t from this world. He really was a wild one.

Mostly the television faded into the background with its endless meaningless chatter and jingles, but on one night my ears perked up.

“Making the national news tonight is a video from controversial internet fringe “conspiracy theory”, uh, journalist Alex James. His special report that has been downloaded and viewed over ten million times and reposted and altogether is one of the most watched videos in his show’s history even though the video has since been removed from VuTube for a violation of the terms of service. According to the web video which we will show in a moment, Alex claims to have found a dog, who after government experiments has an understanding of the English language. Alex claims that this dog was “manufactured” in a secret lab, by evil scientists. Never one to miss an opportunity to grand stand and make wild specious claims this video has certainly grabbed the imagination of a nation. This video has been shared over and over. One group MediaForTruth has put together a video that makes a very convincing case that it’s all a hoax orchestrated by James’ tinfoil hat militia to try and make him relevant again after VuTube’s banning. A large number of deniers still believe that the video footage is authentic. But truthfully, I’m hard pressed to believe that conspiracy nut about anything, but oddly enough there seems to be coincidental corroboration of some of the story by the local police and the squatters illegally camped out next to Alex Jones and his “dream trailer” in the California desert. Tonight the topic of our special report. Is this talking dog real? Or just a hoax created by a media whore? Join us after the break as we delve into the story of a talking dog, and surreal life of the man known as Alex James.”

I walked around to the front of the couch and climbed up on the cushions turning my back on the forest.

And then there was a commercial for tampons that apparently will make women smarter and more attractive to men. And then a commercial for an Italian chain restaurant who’s biggest claim to fame are the never ending half cooked doughy bread sticks.

Then a commercial for a drug for hypochondriacs to treat some made up disease. And when they got to the part about the possible side effects my jaw dropped. I wondered how this disease commercial could convince people willing to treat this non-malady, when the “cure” had all sorts of even more undesirable effects than the made up disease.

Then the older intellectual news anchor was back with his wire framed glasses pushed halfway down his nose. He glanced at his digital tablet and sat on a comfortable tall stool. The lighting changed so that he was in a cone of light. He was intelligent, well-groomed, he looked directly into the camera and again began his somewhat unflattering description of Alex James and why they thought that the following video (of me)... of which they only showed a short snippet, was somehow faked. “But due to the overwhelming public outcry and now with private civilians looking into this... the internet was abuzz with this story going viral. To the point that the US government had to step in to put out their own clear message in this time of confusion. The internet conspiracy theorists were spinning wilder and wilder. They again repeated their position that it was wrong for anyone to be experimented on without their permission. During the viral video in question several events in the recent weeks were attributed to government actions. A forest fire, unusual for winter destroyed a US Park Rangers station and burned a significant segment of the forest, it was believed to have been started by a lighting strike. But residents near the park and hikers who claim to have been present when the blaze broke out say there was no storm. Lighting can occur without large clouds and they all admit that there had been several storms in the preceding days. There are also other so called ‘unexplained events’ like the horrible university fire a state away, where several teachers and students lost their lives when the Agricultural building burst into flame, in a blaze that has since been attributed to arson or a combination of a local greek hazing party gone wrong. The blaze turned into a raging inferno when it caught the fertilizer on fire - leveling the building. Even the apparently unrelated deaths of an innocent young pastors family in tragic RV accident, and some local hikers who suffered a hunting accident, the day before the forest fire - have become part of this paranoid man’s delusions of a vast government conspiracy.”

It was so easy to just believe his opinion, it sounded so rational. And all the strange anomalies had such reasonable alternate explanations. Except that I’d been there. I’d seen most of it happen. And it didn’t fit into the anchor’s nice safe little box full of crazy coincidences.

“The truth is that very little truth is necessary for some people to create a world where everything becomes an attack on them and their way of life. Four horrible incidents all attributed to some nameless faceless government boogeyman. That all of these deadly events are horrible there is no question. That they are all related, and linked to the same set of circumstances becomes harder to believe. What we know for certain is that many families have lost loved ones and our hearts go out them all in this time of sorrow.” A picture of me frozen in fear looking small at the end of the desk taken from the video filled the screen and slowly zoomed closer and closer. “Did this creature have anything to do with any of those deaths? We may never know, because it conveniently disappeared the same time that the police showed up. But one thing we can say for certain is that we have only touched the surface of what appears to be a very confusing situation. We only hope that this creature reappears at some point so that the truth of all of those events be unraveled.” My pixelated eyes fill the screen. “For the time being Alex James is being held as the FBI, CIA, DEA, BLM, National Park Rangers and NSA all investigate the situation. As we understand it every lead is being run down, every clue brought to light - and to that we say, right on. We all eagerly await your findings.”

Every lead run down, and brought to light. Was that a good thing? Was it supposed to be comforting? It almost sounded like a challenge, a gauntlet being thrown down. Come out or we’ll run you down. I wanted to turn it off but I didn’t have the remote.

“And to help us understand this issue please welcome our panel of guests, Chip Danville long time capitol hill reporter and pundit.” A piebald man with a slightly crazy look in his black eyes nodded and smiled with bleached white teeth that set up like a bad fence. His small neck a wrinkly veined stick circled by a dark collar of a suit that looked two sizes too large.

Also welcome “Delia Gonzales human rights advocate and ethicist.” A chubby Hispanic woman, with in-congruent blonde streaks and an ample soft bosom that she proudly displayed and adjusted for effect. She winked at the host, who gave no sign of recognition save an extra blink before introducing his final guest.

“And finally please welcome Dr. Li Shen a world renown geneticist, CEO and founder of Wootsoo EnerGene Research and Nobel prize winner who is pioneering the world of gene therapy.”

My throat closed.

My legs locked.

I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think.

I stared at the TV. The image froze and pixelated juddering between two frames. Shen stared out at me unblinking frozen in a moment.

“Ah there we are, had a little trouble with the signal for a moment.”

Dr. Shen stared at me from the television.

I realized that my lips had pulled back in an involuntary snarl. I was ready to bite the flat screen.

It cut back to the host. “I want to thank you all for being here.”

The cords that bound me to the floor were broken.

I bolted from the room.