Free The Theory of Games by Ezra Sidran Page B

headboard of the bed.
    I tried to shake myself awake. Bill was already ready . Katelynn was still behind the curve. Wake up darling , I told her. I took her keys to the VW bug. I went into the bathroom – stepping lightly over Shelby Taylor who had, apparently, staked out this section of the hallway as her nighttime chunk of turf – and threw great handfuls of ice-cold water straight from the tap onto my face. Wake up, Jake, wake up! I’ve got to be awake because something very, very bad has happened! Bill nuzzled the bathroom door aside and found me sitting on the toilet. A half-assed attempt of a tail wag from Bill .
    “Bill, this is bad,” I told the old dog.
    Another tail wag. Oh, Bill this is Bad .
    I pulled up my pants and flushed the toilet, walked into the hall, again stepping lightly over Shelby Taylor; Katelynn was just leaving the bedroom. “Let’s go,” she said and she extended her right hand for the keys. I reached into my pocket and flipped the keys to her. Bill gingerly hopped over Shelby; four legs and not a one came within an inch of the sleeping student.
    Okay, I thought when we got to the back door, maybe this is just a nightmare I was having. Maybe I am still asleep in our bed. Maybe, maybe, maybe we are still all asleep.
    We got into Kate’s VW bug.
    Bill jumped into the backseat behind Kate. Kate looked around – calm and cool in a crisis – checked my seat belt; double-checked on Bill in the back before she put the bug in gear. We drove down the dark deserted streets across town to 2475 Appomattox Road. The whole time I kept repeating to myself, “This is not real. This is not real. ” Bill was deadly serious. I had never seen him like this before; he was a bronze sculpture of taught muscle. He was an old dog that, just now, looked ten years younger than he should. The lump in his neck, the CardioTronic 4315, was nothing to him. His eyes were bright. Mortality meant nothing to Bill. He was focused and I was… I was drifting across a sea of taut water stretched beyond our eyes’ horizon.
    I kept thinking that this was not real but Bill was deadly focused. I – the homo sapien, and the product of millions of years of evolution that had left Bill and his ancestors behind in the dirt – kept on thinking that this is not real. We are still sleeping Bill. This is all just a bad dream, Bill. But, Bill knew.
    And – all too soon – I would know, too.
     
    •
     
    There were bright blue Mars lights flashing when Kate pulled into the cul-de-sac and a thick yellow plastic police ribbon that Kate drove under. There were a lot of police and men in black suits – like junior Authoritarian Men – arrayed in front of Nick’s apartment on Appomattox Road.
    Bill’s ears were far back on his head. His eyes were bright. He was panting like a steam engine. When Kate opened the door Bill jumped out. He had been to Nick’s apartment before; he ran straight up the stairs, past the police and the junior authoritarian men, and straight to Nick’s body.
    Kate and I ran, stumbling, after Bill.
    Bill was licking Nick’s legs. Bill was pushing against Nick’s body; strung up, limp, dangling from the ceiling fan. Bill was frantic. Bill bared his teeth. Bill snarled at the police assembled around Nick’s dangling body. Bill showed his fangs and lunged at the cops. A sound, deep from inside Bill – a sound that I had never heard before – came from him. He pushed up, again, against Nick’s body, dangling, limp from the ceiling fan; trying – I don’t know what – to support Nick against the cord that crushed his windpipe.
    I just collapsed on to my knees before Nick’s lifeless body and cried, the tears were a river; my heart was ash.
    Bill, frantic, turned on me. He snapped at the back of my neck. He wanted me to help Nick.
    I stumbled back up onto my feet and tried to lift Nick off the rope. Bill turned – his back to me, the fur along his spine raised up – and snarled and lunged at the cops. I