grazing.
“It works like a monitor. You see, they all have the chip so it will show each and every one of them on this monitor. Its like you are really next to them.”
“ I know, right.” Scott said.
The ears on the deer perk up in response to a noise that comes from the side. He turns his head towards it. As he does, Zoth completely severs his head with his massive claws. All but one sliver of meat that dangles it as it stumbles and falls. But as it hit ’s the ground, another wolf appears that made the noise, for it was not Zoth or Zoth’s area that the deer had looked at. It was the intruder, another wolf, a brown one. But it doesn’t seem to notice the deer at all. No, it is headed right for Zoth. Zoth takes a fighting stance with his paws, digging into the canopy of the earthy floor.
“You came right on time, Scott. They are gonna fight.”
But what Scott and Rob didn ’t know, was that Zoth noticed Scott enter the booth. He takes the hit purposely and roll out of sight. He rolled down a leafy hill. Zoth’s massive claw appears under the brown wolf’s lip. Zoth whispers in the canine’s ear, “Stand down,” then pierces his lip and pushes the wolf off. The wolf scurries into the woods. Zoth comes back up the hill. Zoth thinks to himself, ‘Little man sees me strong. He will take my body. It’s not happening.’ So he decides to fake a limp as he appeared over the top of the hill. He limps purposely, having to bare down on all three legs, not using his back left one.
“ Aw, shit!” Rob yells at the screen. “I think he broke a leg. Now I will have to change all my plans. Dammit! It’s okay though, I can use the another one. He almost got three in the last halo form. I still have time. Scott, since you are in this with me, you can have your pick of any wolf you want. I will show you each and every one.”
The whole glass wall turns into miniature screens of each of the thirteen wolves. A devils dozen. Rob says, “All but this one and of course the one with the broken leg.”
“ That’s weird. Check it out, Rob. They are all moving the same way as they stalk deer. Why is that?”
“ They are all inner-linked,. They have the same DNA. I am kind of limited up here. I had to make it myself. There just wasn’t enough time to get all unique. In a way, they are basically the same inside, totally. They have the same diet habits and seem that they think together in some sort of telepathic instinct, I think, but they all followed that big one there. We could always ditch them if they cause us any trouble after we hit earth. But it would have been nice to have back up if we needed it down there. It’s to risky to use human forms and I just didn’t want to chance it. Results of making humans up here, well, I don’t have to tell you what freaks came out of that. Somehow that dark matter gets in them. I cant figure it out. If I could break that hold, I think we could be human. But I just ain’t got enough time, you know, Scott?”
“ Yea, me neither,” Scott replied.
“ That’s why I wanted to use the leader. Maybe if I got in that brain of his, they would follow me just because they are use to it. It’s all they know.”
“ Yea, that would have been nice. Why don’t you just fix the leg?”
“ It’s organic, Scott, I can’t. It has to heal on its own.”
“ Well then, Rob, what are you buying here? I mean think about it. You are gonna go down there and cause all that havoc for what? Another seventy years maybe if you are lucky.”
“ Seventy more than we got, buddy.”
Scott couldn ’t argue with that, knowing that his time was up soon too.
“ I shouldn’t have let him hunt.” Rob said.
“ Its okay, Rob. Like you said, we will probably end up ditching them anyway. Look, I will be back by here so we can get this shit over with
Jennifer Pharr Davis, Pharr Davis