Hair of the Dog by Gordon Carroll (reading strategies book TXT) 📗

block away and made his way through alleys until he came up on the man and two women parked at the back of the club. The girls were obviously dancers and the guy in the car was obviously trying to make a transaction for either drugs or sex or both. Either way, he had to have money on him. The man was black. The girls, leaning in on the open passenger side window, white. Jerome came out of the shadows on the driver’s side and reached the driver before he could react. He punched him once in the face, then grabbed his shirt and dragged him half way out the window. The man, already recovering, tried to grab for something in his pants. Jerome hit him again and he sagged, unconscious. Jerome did a quick pat-down while the girls screamed and cussed him out. He watched them from the corner of his eyes, knowing just how dangerous hookers could be. He pulled a cheap, snub-nosed .38 out of the guys pocket, along with about a quarter ounce of meth and several smaller baggies and a wad of bills rolled tight. The bills were hidden in the crotch of his sagging jeans and because they were so loose, the roll was easy to retrieve. Jerome tossed the meth to the girls and they scrambled to snatch up the baggies, their screams and cursing completely forgotten. Jerome found the man’s wallet under the seat and took it with him.

Clair still slept as he slipped into the room. One of the holes in his chest leaked from the stitches, but everything else pretty much held. After cleaning it up in the bathroom, he looked at the needle and thread. He just didn’t have it in him to do it right now. A little direct pressure and a bandage with tape did the trick. He dumped the money, wallet and weapon into his gym bag and stripped down to his boxers before lying next to his daughter and falling fast asleep.

15

The tinkle of glass; pain for an instant — the crash — the horrible crash. Gravity was defied as Marla’s sippy cup and Jolene’s sunglasses floated weightlessly inside the flipping van. I reached out for them as the Beetles sang about nothing changing their world, even as mine was being destroyed. Marla, morphing into Keisha as Jerome’s giant feet crunched on the glass, coming closer and closer. Jolene, telling me she loved me. The crotch rocket’s engine ratcheting up to a high pitched scream and the VW slowly cruising past my view. I tried to move — to get up — to cry out — and then I saw him — his face — the stitches — the rings — the spiked hair — and it wasn’t Jerome — only in the way of dreams, it also was. My mind called for Max — willing him to destroy this monster — to rip its throat out and let its evil blood spill on the street — but Max hadn’t been born yet and the still vibrant Pilgrim was home sleeping in his doggy bed. The Jerome not-Jerome thing knelt down in front of me, cocking its head this way and that as if trying to come to a decision it had already reached. I prayed for God to strike it down — to send fire from the sky and burn it alive — to make it ash and dust and dead — but the face morphed back and forth from Stitch to Jerome to Stitch, and the sky held only darkness and horror and I watched silently as the creature stood and turned and walked toward Keisha, held captive in her car seat. Rage and terror and utter helplessness exploded inside my chest; the beating of my heart ripping at the speed of a drummer’s riff. I screamed inside my mind and raged behind my eyes as the monster continued its path, and I heard the boom and saw the red dimple appear, as if by magic, in the center of Keisha’s forehead; a red drop, blooming like a fatal flower, spreading and growing until it poured like the river Nile, touched by Moses’ staff. A portent of the Angel of Death that steals the first born. In the dream, I couldn’t stand — couldn’t move — couldn’t scream. I could only watch as history played itself out with different players and different sets, like actors in some ghastly Shakespearian tragedy. A part of me knew it was only a dream, but that part was too small to stop the pain and the horror and the guilt, and I prayed to wake up, just like I prayed that night, only I didn’t wake up then and I didn’t wake up now.

Max followed the small pack of coyotes for several hours before losing them as they crossed asphalt and several lanes of traffic along C470. He ran across several smaller creatures; rabbits, raccoons, a badger — but he wasn’t hungry and they were no threat to either him or his territory and so — beneath his concern. He let them alone and continued back home.

Home.

The dog that now thought of himself as Max would not so long ago have considered it impossible to think of this arid climate as home or any creature, let alone this human Gil Mason, as his alpha. But that was exactly how he did think of them now. His fear and hatred of the alpha had slowly turned its way into something else entirely, and although it might not yet be actual love, it was at least respect and admiration. Something Max had never felt for another animal. Since the slaughter of his pack, he had known only hatred from and for other animals.

The Alpha still confused Max. He seemed an enigma. A strange combination of weakness and strength. Pilgrim, he understood. A once skilled warrior who had lived past his usefulness to the pack. The old