Pit Bulls vs Aliens (18 page)

Francisco fumbled around searching for a weapon and brought a switchblade knife out of his pocket.

Thomas stepped in front of him. Looking back at Francisco, he smiled. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to bring a knife to an alien fight?”

Francisco laughed. Dr. McNair and the colonel burst into laughter as well.

This seemed to aggravate the alien even more as he ripped off his helmet and roared. Then he advanced.

“He’s mine,” Thomas said, ripping off his shirt and revealing a very muscular upper torso. Thomas was an amazing sight for a human, tall and very well built, but he looked puny next to the alien. Still, he met him face to face.

The alien looked down on Thomas with his shining red eyes and charged.

Thomas stepped aside and threw a punch that landed flush on the alien’s jaw.

“Come on, Thomas, you can do it,” Francisco cheered.

The next punch was not successful, and the creature grabbed Thomas around the throat and easily lifted him high into the air.

And then Angel was there. She bit into the alien’s legs, the back side where there was no protection, and began shaking her head violently. There is a misconception about pit bulls, that they have locking jaws. It isn’t true, but the jaws of a pit bull are extremely strong, as the alien was learning firsthand. The alien dropped Thomas and cried out in pain. He tried to grab Angel but she was too quick. The alien turned to run away but Angel followed, attacking him at will.

Francisco, Dr. McNair, and the colonel picked up Thomas and headed back toward the dye line.

“Come on, Angel!” the colonel yelled.

By now Angel was a long way away, still in hot pursuit, still attacking the alien with ease. She heard the colonel and turned to run back. Other aliens had come running to help the one in distress and fired their weapons at Angel. But she was too fast and their shots landed behind or beside her.

The colonel signaled the retreat, and the orders were passed along via radio to the other commanders. The soldiers made their way back to the north. The alarm sounded and the aliens retreated as well.

By the time the shield activated at the new spikes, everyone was across the line.

Francisco helped the colonel to the command center. “I’ll get you a medic.”

“No,” the colonel said. “There are a lot of soldiers worse than me. Go make sure they’re taken care of.”

“Yes, sir,” Francisco said and left the command center.

Darren and Dr. McNair took a seat in the command center as Thomas went to get a new shirt. A few minutes later, both Thomas and Major Strafford entered the room.

“I heard you boys weren’t satisfied to sit this one out,” the major said with a grin.

Thomas shrugged. “What are you gonna do?’

“Are you all right?” Sally asked, looking at Thomas. She began cleaning a wound on his forehead.

“I’ll live,” he said with a smile.

“You saved all our butts,” Dr. McNair said.

“That’s a fact,” Colonel Jamison agreed. “You’re one brave man.”

Sally smiled at Thomas as she bandaged his head. Then she thought of Angel running out of the command center and felt a pang of guilt. “I’m sorry about Angel,” Sally said to the colonel. “I didn’t mean for her to get out.”

The colonel laughed as he stroked the back of his dog. “Don’t be sorry. She also saved our bacon.”

Thomas stood up. “She did. Did you see how she attacked that alien? He was helpless. Heck, they couldn’t even shoot her.”

“Is that right?” Major Strafford asked.

“That’s true,” said the colonel. “And she’s old. I didn’t even know she could move like that anymore.” The colonel began to look over her body, carefully running his fingers through her short fur. “She doesn’t seem to have any injuries. Amazing.”

“Is that blood around her mouth?” Sally asked.

The colonel nodded. “Yes, but it’s not hers. It’s alien blood. Now we know they bleed like we do, and red blood.”

“She really got the best of one of the alien soldiers?” Darren asked.

“That she did. Didn’t you, girl?” The colonel took a damp cloth and began to wipe the blood from Angel’s mouth area. “I wish we had a thousand of her.”

Dr. McNair jumped to his feet and stood beside Thomas. Everyone looked at him with confusion as he fumbled for his wallet.

“What is it?” Sally asked.

Dr. McNair looked at the colonel. “How long before the next battle?”

“Usually about two weeks while they build their new homes. Why?”

Dr. McNair found what he was looking for. It was the card that Glenda Eagle had given him with her phone number. He turned the card toward the colonel and then toward the major and smiled. “You want a thousand of her? I can get you more than that. That’s right, Colonel, Major, you’ve just gotten your reinforcements.”

Everyone stared with wide-open eyes as Dr. McNair explained about all the shelters just in Southern California alone with thousands of pit bulls.

“It’s the same here in Mexico,” Francisco added. “And I have a friend who can contact them all.”

After listening intently, the colonel was 100 percent behind Dr. McNair’s plan. He went straight to the SATCOM. After a few minutes, he got the person he wanted.

“This is General Nickerson. Is this you, Benjamin? Tell me you have good news.”

Colonel Jamison smiled as he gripped the transmitter. “I’m not sure if it’s good news, but we have a plan.”

“Tell me,” the general said in an eager tone. “What do you need from me?”

The colonel looked around at the others in the command center before answering. “I need every cattle and sheep trailer you can get. I need as many tankers filled with water as you can send. I need a hundred large fans. I need a thousand large plastic containers. And I need as much dog food as the government can afford.”

“Are you serious?” the general asked.

“I’m serious,” the colonel said.

Thomas tapped him on the shoulder and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh,” the colonel added, “and plenty of chew toys.”

“Has the heat finally gotten to you, Benjamin?” the general asked.

The colonel laughed, then explained to the general what had happened during the battle.

“Ah hell, Benjamin, it sounds good to me.”

“All right then,” the colonel said. “Now can you put someone on who can connect us to a phone line?” With that he turned and looked at Dr. McNair. “Now it’s up to you.”

“I can’t believe I’m here with you on my day off,” Marcus Olazaba said. “I could be fishing. Heck, I’d rather be back at work.”

Glenda Eagle smiled. “Nonsense. This is much more fun than being a cop.”

Marcus shook his head. “You are loco.”

“There she is,” Glenda said. “See her?”

Marcus stared through the openings of the old dilapidated buildings. The wind whistled and tumbleweed blew across the terrain like in an old Western movie. “Okay, I see her.”

A person had phoned the Pit Stop and given them info on a stray pit bull. Sergeant Olazaba was simply visiting Glenda and her dogs when the call came in. She quickly recruited him. She knew him to be a dog lover, especially when it came to pit bulls, and she had already talked him into adopting three of hers.

“Come on,” Glenda said and walked slowly toward the dog.

It was a big brown female, and the low-hanging teats meant she probably had a litter around. The pit got more nervous as Glenda and Marcus got closer. When they were only about twenty feet away, the pit bull turned to walk away.

Glenda held her hand behind her back. “Give me a cheeseburger.”

Marcus took one of the fast-food burgers and gave it to her. She unwrapped it and tore off a small piece.

“Here, girl. Look what I got.”

The pit bull stopped and turned around. Glenda tossed the first piece almost all the way to her. The dog quickly swallowed it. Glenda tossed another, but not quite as far. The dog approached them and gulped down the second piece. This continued until the pit was a mere five feet away.

Glenda sat down and motioned for Marcus to do the same. This made them look less threatening. After several more minutes of coaxing the dog and tossing valuable food, the pit got close enough for Glenda to get a leash around her. She didn’t try to run away.

“She wants attention, doesn’t she?” Marcus asked as he ran his hands over the dog’s head and behind her ears. “Okay, let’s take her back.”

“We can’t,” Glenda said.

“What? Why not? I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“It is,” Glenda said, “but she has pups around here somewhere. We need to find them too.”

“How do we do that?”

Glenda smiled at Marcus. “We let her go.”

“Are you serious? After all we went through to catch her?”

“Yep.” Glenda nodded. “If she trusts us, she’ll take us right to her pups.”

Glenda took off the leash, and the big pit bull mom just stayed right there with them. “Let’s walk around,” Glenda said.

So Marcus and Glenda wandered around until the pit bull walked away from them. They followed her, and she led them to a litter of seven fat little pups. Five were brown like their mom, and the other two were black and white. Glenda sat down beside them and picked each one up and caressed it.

“What do we do now?” Marcus asked.

Glenda handed him two pups. “We take them back to the car and the mom will follow.”

That’s what they did. Marcus carried four of them and Glenda carried three. The mom ran alongside with her tongue flopping and tail wagging.

When they got back to the Pit Stop, they found a stall for all of them together.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Glenda asked.

Marcus nodded with a big smile. “It really does.”

“Now we need to find them homes.” Glenda batted her eyes quickly at Marcus.

“Oh no. I already have three from here, and I don’t have room for those. If I bring another one home, my wife will leave me.”

As they walked back toward the office, they could hear the phone ring.

A young volunteer stepped in and answered the phone. “Hello? The Pit Stop.”

“Yes, I need to speak with Glenda Eagle, please.” Dr. McNair’s voice came through.

A girl stuck her head out the door. “Glenda—telephone.”

Glenda Eagle walked Marcus to his car and thanked him again, not just for today, but for the dogfighting incident as well. She looked up at the volunteer. “Tell ’em I’m busy.”

The teenage girl did just that.

“Tell her it’s Dr. Stephen McNair.”

“He says his name is Dr. Stephen McNair.”

Glenda forgot to say good-bye to Marcus and turned and rushed to the phone. “Stephen, what’s going on? Have you heard about the alien invasion? Is this what you meant when you told me the world was going to end?” There was a slight pause while she listened. “Okay, I’ll stop talking so you can talk.”

Several of the volunteers stopped what they were doing to watch Glenda, and even though she didn’t say anything for a while, her eyes conveyed that whatever she was hearing was big. Finally, she got off the phone and looked at the ones gathered around.

“We have a lot of work to do.” She pulled out the list of all the shelters, pounds, and humane societies in Southern California and dialed the first number. “Hello, this is Glenda Eagle with the Pit Stop. Do not, I repeat
do not
, put any pit bulls to sleep in the next week. The government will be sending a truck to pick them up. We need them to save the world.”

After several more minutes of explaining the situation, she convinced the person on the other end of the line she wasn’t pulling a prank. Glenda knew several of the larger shelters euthanized two hundred pit bulls a day, and she had the phone numbers of all of them, large and small. Plus, she knew of twelve other shelters like hers, and although none of them was quite as large as hers, together they cared for thousands of pits.

“What’s going on?” one of her volunteers asked.

Glenda looked up and smiled. “They need as many pit bulls as they can get to stop the alien invasion.” She walked out and looked down the long corridor of stalls housing most of the dogs and pointed. “Uncle Sam needs you.”

The small group of volunteers all looked at each other for several seconds. Finally, the same one spoke again. “All right. Just tell us what we need to do.”

Over the next few days, cattle and sheep trailers pulled by military trucks and driven by military personnel began showing up at all the places Glenda had provided the information for and had personally spoken to. After the trailers were loaded to the max, a two-man team would begin the roughly 2,700-mile drive to where the colonel and major awaited their new soldiers. The teams drove almost nonstop, taking turns to sleep.

Several trucks pulled up to the Pit Stop. Glenda directed the drivers where to park, and her volunteers started bringing the dogs to the trailers.

“Go get ’em, Emily,” Glenda said as they loaded a red-and-white pit. “You be safe, Max,” she said to a large brown pit. “Make us proud, Minnie,” she said to another. “Take care, Buster. Be strong, Romeo. We love you, Clark Kent.”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a private said. “This manifest says you have almost a thousand pit bulls. Is that right?”

“Goodbye, Barney.” She looked at the private. “Yes, that’s right. Why? We’ll miss you, Ranger.”

“I was just wondering, ma’am. Do you know all of them by name?’

“Of course,” Glenda snapped. “You got a problem with that?”

“No, ma’am, not at all.” The private walked away and left Glenda to say farewell to all her pitties.

Soon her dogs were all loaded, and those trucks headed south like the others.

Back in Mexico, the command center received its first shipment of large plastic containers. Colonel Jamison rode with Darren and Francisco from one coast to the other explaining what was going on. The three pit bull lovers were enthusiastic. And for the first time since this war began, the soldiers had real hope.

After the large containers were spaced out all across the front line, the trucks with water and dog food began arriving. Just as the soldiers began to fill the containers, the colonel stopped them.

“Wait,” the colonel said. “Let’s relocate all the containers. Let’s take them all up near the shield. Let’s have the dogs set up there.”