Savage (12 page)

Alfred planted his paws, but the hardwood floors of the bedroom were not a bulldog's friend, and he was easily dragged. The dog fought even more wildly now, as if realizing where it was that she was taking him. Alfred thrashed his muscular body and continued to try and gouge her with his claws, but Janice held tightly, for the alternative was something that she would rather not think about.

She made it through the doorway out into the hall, but the dog managed to get his claws dug into the wood of the door's threshold, and she found her grip on the dog's face sliding off just enough so that . . .

Alfred went wild, his savage jaws snapping crazily, like some kind of mechanized animal trap. Janice screamed as she pushed herself back with her legs toward the open bathroom doorway as Alfred came at her. Her hands shot out in front of her to hold him back, and the dog's mouth chomped down upon her fingers. She felt the fragile bones snap beneath the closure of his unrelenting jaws. The pain was blinding, and she saw brilliant explosions of red before her eyes as she struggled to retain her consciousness. Rolling over onto her knees, Janice furiously began to crawl her way into the bathroom. An incredible weight landed upon her back, driving her flat to the floor, and she felt Alfred's hot breath upon her neck. Scrunching up her shoulders, she reached behind her to try and knock the animal away. Her fingers touched on something cold and metal, and she at once knew that she was touching the dog's choke collar. Grabbing the chain, she yanked with all her might, flipping the dog over her right shoulder as she pushed off from the entryway floor to the bathroom.

Alfred rolled from her back into the side of the bathroom's trash can, barely pausing a second before he was charging her again. She'd managed to stand and reached over to pull a wicker hamper into the dog's path, blocking him. Janice used that moment to turn herself around and grab hold of the bathroom door to start to close it. Alfred sprang off the body of the hamper, wedging his head in the doorway just as she tried to pull it shut. The bulldog was wild, attempting to shake his blocky head free and force more of his muscular body through to get at her. Janice pulled the door with both hands, even though the pain from her injuries was excruciating. But she was willing to endure it to prevent what would surely be worse if the dog managed to get out of the bathroom.

Still pulling on the doorknob, she raised her foot, kicking the dog in the face once and then again. Blood dribbled down his dark nose onto his yellowed teeth, giving them a new, horrific look as they continued to snap and grind. Summoning all her strength for one final push, Janice lifted her leg and drove the heel of her sensible shoe square into Alfred's snout and managed to drive his head back into the bathroom and allow her to pull the door closed.

She stood there shaking, head pressed to the door. Alfred was going wild in the bathroom, repeatedly hurling his muscular body against the door. She actually started to laugh, a kind of release from the intense emotions that had been gradually building since smashing her husband's skull in. The door felt cool against her brow, and she closed her eyes, giggling insanely as the tension began to slowly leave her.

Alfred angrily continued to throw himself at the door, and she seriously began to worry that the French bulldog might be strong enough to punch his way through. She turned herself around, her back pressed to the vibrating surface of the door, and opened her eyes to the darkness of the room . . . and her husband standing mere inches from her.

Janice tried to scream, but the sight of him, the way his head was grotesquely misshapen where his skull had been smashed in, and how he looked at her, head cocked strangely to one side, with dark, dead eyes that seemed to bore into hers . . . it stole away her ability to cry out.

Then she noticed it, just as she had on Alfred. A shiny reflective coating over her husband's right eye. She wondered what it might mean as he lunged at her, his mouth agape.

Janice tried to escape, darting to go around him, but he was too fast. Ronald collided with her, slamming her back against the hallway wall, and lowered his face to her neck to sink his teeth into the tender skin and rip a huge chunk away. Her hands went to the spurting wound as she cried out; there was so much blood. Janice tried to push her husband away with one hand, but the blood from the neck wound had made the hardwood floor slippery, and she found her feet sliding out from beneath her.

Ronald stiffly lurched in her direction, his spastic movement reminding her of the mechanical historical figures at the Hall of Presidents in Disney World. Her head was becoming light, and she tried to use the wall to prop herself up, to make her escape toward the stairs and hopefully to freedom out into the storm, but Ronald caught her, driving her down to the floor again. Janice tried to fight him, but he was too strong. Again he lowered his bloodstained mouth toward her exposed neck.

He sank his teeth into her throat with a sickening pop, tearing the tender flesh away with a savage yank.

The man who had been Ronald Berthold watched the woman die.

No longer did he remember that he had once loved her, cared for her. Nor did he remember that she had tried to kill him.

Ronald Berthold was gone, and only the body remained.

The blood that had been gushing from the woman's gaping throat wound had slowed to a mere trickle as her heart ceased to pump. The man stared, watching for further signs of life, but there were none.

Satisfied, he struggled to stand, slipping in the coagulating puddle of blood and almost falling to the floor.

Almost.

The man caught himself against the closed bathroom door, a bloody handprint smeared across the white surface. The door suddenly vibrated menacingly as something on the other side threw itself against the obstruction.

The man stiffly stepped back from the door, staring at it with a questioning eye. It shook violently again.

Tilting his head from one side to the other, the man determined that something was on the other side and wished to come out. The man studied the door as it continued to vibrate and be pounded upon, his eyes fixing on the doorknob.

It took a moment, but the body remembered what it was for, reaching out with a blood-covered hand to grip the cool metal of the knob and squeeze it tightly, before slowly turning it to the right and—

Click!

The bathroom door swung inward with a prolonged creak, exposing the muscular figure of the dog standing there.

Waiting.

The man locked eyes with the beast, a kind of invisible communication seeming to pass between them.

The dog left the bathroom, briefly staring at the cooling corpse of the woman in the hallway before coming to stand beside the man.

They stood for a while, as if waiting for something—a message perhaps—and then began to walk toward the stairs.

Side by side, the man and the dog descended the steps to the first floor. At the front door, they paused momentarily before the man reached for the doorknob and, recalling what he had done just moments before, turned it.

He pulled the door open. There was a heavy gust of wind and rain, but the man and dog were unfazed by the fury of the elements as they walked together through the doorway.

Out into the storm.

Doc Martin should have left the clinic and gone home hours ago, but there she was, still puttering, having little need or interest to head home.

This was where she truly lived. This was where she was alive, and it had pretty much been that way since she'd first opened the practice nearly thirty years before.

The animal hospital was her life.

She was craving a smoke but dreaded the idea of going outside. The storm was raging and sounded like it could have gotten worse. The weather guys had said that this one was going to be a beaut, and for once it wasn't all hype. She seriously considered spending the night at the clinic. It wouldn't have been the first time that she'd sprawled out in her office chair, covered in blankets meant as donations from one of the mainland's many animal shelters.

She was about to start flipping through the first of at least twenty veterinary medical journals that she'd let pile up when she heard them.

It sounded as though a full-scale riot was going on in the kennels.

“What the hell is that all about?” she muttered, leaving her seat and heading to the door that led to the dog kennels.

Doc Martin opened the door to the sounds of the wild. It seemed as though every animal inside the caged compartments was in the process of losing its mind.

“Whoa! Whoa!” she called out as she stepped inside the room. “What's going on?”

The dogs inside their recovery cages were extremely agitated, barking and scratching at their compartment doors. The strong smell of urine and feces filled the air.

She stopped at the first cage to check out Lilly, the basset hound who'd had stomach surgery that afternoon. The dog was up on all fours, frantically pawing at the bottom of the cage door, and when she saw Doc Martin, she immediately threw herself at the door, biting ferociously at the metal.

“What's gotten into you?” she muttered to herself, concerned that the dog's frantic activity might cause her stitches to pop. Doc Martin was considering getting some medication to calm her down when she noticed similar activity in the cage beside the basset hound.

Rufus, a cute corgi/Labrador mix who had come in to have some teeth pulled, was spinning around inside his cage so fast that Doc was afraid he was going to hurt himself.

“Hey,” she said, approaching the cage. She laid her hand against the front of the cage door and tapped it to get his attention. “Knock it off before you break your friggin—”

The dog stopped on a dime and shoved his face against the metal grate of the door so hard in an attempt to bite her hand that blood actually squirted from his nose.

Doc Martin quickly pulled her hand away, and Rufus immediately went back to spinning. Feeling eyes upon her, she glanced across the way to see Beau, the standard poodle who had come in for neutering, staring intensely at her, teeth bared in a sign of absolute aggression.

She didn't know what was going on, but clearly something was up. It would have been easy to blame it all on the storm, to come up with some bullshit connected to atmospheric conditions, or even something as simple as intense fear caused by the sound of thunder, but she knew that it wasn't right.

Something was seriously wrong.

A glint of light from one of Beau's eyes caught Doc Martin's attention, and she moved closer to the poodle's cage. The dog reacted as aggressively as the others had, ramming his face against the metal cage door.

“What's wrong with your eye?” she asked the dog.

Beau's right eye seemed to be covered in a shiny, metallic film. She stared at it, moving one of her hands in front of the cage in order to get the dog to move his head around so that she could check it out better. She hadn't a clue as to what it was. The fact that it was only covering one eye was interesting as well.

Doc Martin was just about to check out the other dogs to see if they, too, showed any signs of this ocular malady when there was terrific crashing sound from the end of the row of cages. All the dogs went suddenly silent as the door of the last cage in the row exploded outward, twisted and hanging on by a single hinge, followed by the huge form of a bull mastiff named Bear who had been recently operated on for an ulcerated lower intestine. The two-hundred-pound dog resembled his namesake, lumbering down the aisle toward her, picking up speed and moving far quicker than an animal that had experienced that kind of surgery should have been able to move.

Just before turning toward the door, she caught a hint of it—a silvery glint coming from the dog's right eye. A cold chill of dread raced up her spine.

She was pulling the door open when Bear sprang, his two hundred pounds slamming her against the door and shutting it. The mastiff's massive head came down, jaws open to bite. She could smell the stink of his breath, a rotten, meaty stench mixed with a hint of anesthesia. The veterinarian rolled onto her back, wedging her forearm beneath the behemoth's throat, preventing his mouth from coming down. The dog was furious in his assault, pushing against Doc Martin's arm, jaws snapping, and all the while she was fighting for her life, she couldn't help but stare into the dog's right eye, at the silvery film that covered the dark, and normally quite soulful, orb.

Doc Martin knew that it was only a matter of time before the powerful animal broke through her defenses and likely tore out her throat. Remembering the surgery that she had performed on the dog, the veterinarian pulled up and lashed out with her legs at the animal's underbelly and at the fifteen-inch-long incision held closed with multiple metal staples.

Bear paused momentarily, grunting and starting to back away, before lunging at her again. This time she was able to plant one of her feet against the dog's chest and kick him back.

The mastiff awkwardly fell to his side, twisting upon the slick linoleum floor before climbing back up to his feet. Doc Martin noticed blood on the floor, spattering down from beneath the dog. The mastiff charged again, and pushing herself back up against the door, Doc Martin used all her remaining strength to kick him in the side.

The sound that followed was nasty, tiny pops followed by a wet tearing sound just before the dog's internal workings spilled out from the now-opened incision onto the floor.

The mastiff hesitated, swaying slightly as if attempting to discern the extent of the damage. Doc Martin tensed as the dog stood there, his muscles and limbs trembling as he started toward her again. She was ready to kick out, but there was little need. Bear took steps toward her before his front legs gave out, his huge head snowplowing along the floor, coming to a final resting stop between her legs.

Doc Martin pushed herself up along the wall, her entire body trembling. The dog twitched and moaned, his back legs kicking out, sliding him forward as if he was still attempting to come at her.