Spot and Smudge - Book One Read online

  As Jerry rode the brakes again she struggled with the same dilemma all of the poor sap commuters surrounding her were debating; stay on or get off? She thought about taking the back roads to the east. She could cut over and head towards Plymouth to get home but that was a guaranteed hour and a half at this time of day, even with no accidents. It should be less than an hour if she stuck with the highway, provided Boston was as clear as the green lines of her phone’s mapping app were suggesting.

  After passing two more fender benders and barely avoiding another rear ending herself, Jerry had barely made it into Massachusetts an hour later. Her brain was threatening to jump out of her skull and murder everyone on the highway. By the time she hit the southern end of the Boston artery she was simply whimpering. Her phone finally caught up to reality and now cheerfully informed her the highway ahead was indeed all red around Boston as well.

  “Just fucking lovely,” she said as she choked the phone and flung it into the passenger seat. As she turned back to the grimy windshield and stomped on the brakes a pinched nerve sprung in her neck and pulsed to the beat of her headache.

  “Ooh, fucking lov-a-leee!” she said as she rotated her head slowly, trying to find the least uncomfortable position to stop the pinging in her skull.

  Jerry was still deep in stop and go traffic hell when the highway turned south, away from Boston and led her towards Cape Cod. It was a Friday night, just past ten o’clock in early May. Had it been a Friday night a few short years ago she’d be joyously high and getting beers bought for her by now. This working shit was growing old and the dog shit stench and the ice picks in her temple were killing her, but she kept telling herself to stay focused on the plan. Soon enough they’d have enough to just sit back and rake in the good life, and she could get back to the business of being high, fucking, and fucking off.

  She knew this traffic was just a taste of what was to come. In another few weeks the Cape Cod vacation nightmare would start. On any Friday night the route south from Boston would turn into a creeping river of SUVs loaded down with heaps of bicycles, kayaks, and the odd Cape Cod Tunnel bumper sticker. A large chunk of her fellow New Englanders would be heading for the Cape bridges and then on to Hyannis or Provincetown for lobster rolls and sunburns. It was a little early in the year for that and there was no explanation for this traffic but she’d lived near Boston long enough to know there didn’t have to be a good reason. Boston loved traffic as much as it loved the Red Sox. Jerry made a mental note to bring more weed, and to drive overnights from now on to avoid sitting in this shit again.

  Chapter 6

  A huge black mouth with multiple rows of silver fangs had her by the front paws and was chewing its way towards her snout. She barked and came semi-awake as she tugged back and felt a tearing pain from her stuck right foot. The silver fangs became a smiling toothy grin clamping down on her paw. It hissed at her, Shhh, stop struggling, it will all be over soon enough little one, just let go…

  She panicked and tugged at her paw. Scrambling to get her hind legs under her bulged tummy, her back feet just skidded in the blood and mess covering the bottom of her cage. Sparks of pain shot up to her shoulders and she bit furiously at her forelimb, pulling away bits of fur. She messed again, wet and dark.

  As she continued to frantically gnaw at herself a large dog somewhere in the dark of the opposite cage wall boomed a huge bark at her, STOP!

  She slowed her breathing and closed her eyes. She concentrated on what she could feel, trying to focus on what was real. The metal of the cage door. The breathing of the dogs around her. The smell of the kennel, the smell of herself.

  She willed away the fangs and slowly opened her eyes. The mouth faded away and the teeth straightened into the shiny steel grid pattern of the cage door. She looked carefully at her stuck paw and turned slightly to pull it free. She pushed herself to the rear of the cage and collapsed on the floor, licking her bleeding paw.

  Dark spots crept in from the sides of her vision. It slowly covered her paw, the cage door, and then everything as she drifted away again.

  She was running in warm sunlight, dancing around the little dark girl in the bright dress. The one who fed her pieces of sandwich and pulled her ears and squealed in delight when she nipped at her socks.

  She was chasing the girl but couldn’t keep up. The girl moved away too fast. The little girl was gone and she was running with her pack. Hunting with her mate by her side. Strong. Fast. Her mate turned to her and his mouth was a row of silver fangs. He lunged at her.

  She woke with a start. The kennel was quiet except for the snoring of dogs and the sound of water dripping on concrete.

  The door was certainly bent out a little. She limped to the front of the cage and tested the bottom. With her fur covered in the slick mess from the cage floor she could easily slip her paws outside the wire door. She slid her chin out and then her snout slid through as well. She stopped, not wanting to get her head stuck again.

  Carefully, she slipped back into the cage and started to work on the bottom of the door again. This time the rusty hinge flexed loudly in the quiet of the kennel. A barrage of supportive whines and yips pushed her on and she tried to yap a thank you but nothing came.

  Clearing her throat she coughed out a thick foamy wad and tried again. This time she delivered a solid bark as she pushed at the bottom of the cage door. She pushed hard. She pushed with everything she had left to give.

  Chapter 7

  The sea of brake lights started to loosen when Jerry reached Braintree, and were gone by the time the overhead highway lights fell away and she was deep into the dark of the quiet South Shore.

  The few cars passing her were mostly filled with smiling young bar hoppers on the way to Plymouth and its waterfront taverns. A pack of girls waved as they passed and Jerry waved back before she caught that they were laughing at the beat up old van, and probably its haggard driver. A decade ago she would have been in the back of one of those cars with a fifth of Jack hidden in her boot next to the condom, and the double-header backup condom. Go ahead chicks, Jerry thought, shake your twins for drinks. Don’t be a tease, but don’t give up more than you have to. That last bit had been another golden nugget of sage advice from her slurring mom.

  Jerry finally enjoyed the rush of fresh air, and the sense of accomplishment only highway speeds can bring. The familiar salt-tinged breeze sucked the stench from the van as she fired up a smoke from one of the new packs. The nails driving into her head started to back off a bit.

  The pain from her pinched neck fell away as the exits flew by, and by the time she took her ramp east toward Pembury she was only seeing one of everything again.

  Jerry turned onto the main road that ran parallel to the highway and connected a string of small towns from South Boston to Cape Cod. In true New England fashion the road was a mix of the old and the new. Strip malls and fast food joints had sprung up next to ancient mom-and-pop shops and protected cemeteries with mossy tombstones from the fifteen-hundreds. There were new developments next to historical houses with pretentious little hand painted plaques with founding family names in script letters.

  Jerry was a townie to the core, and literally grew up on this road. Her mom moved around the South Shore, from job to job and from man to man, but they never lived too far from this quiet route. Jerry had her first real kiss on this road, her first beer, first hit of weed, and first split lip. All of those were on the same night. Not long afterwards she also had her first horrible boyfriend, and then her first abortion, and was now scamming her way into her first real money.

  The road dropped to one lane and she slowed enough for the howl from the open windows to subside. She turned down the blaring radio and as she stabbed the number one preset Jerry cracked her first smile of the day. Her country station from the cape finally came in clearly and her favorite song had just started.

  She came to the lights of the main drag and the speed limit dropped but she barely slowed through both red traffic lights
. Pembury center was all of five blocks long, with a combo gas and convenient store on one end and the small strip mall anchored by the pharmacy and the grocery on the other.

  It was the first warm Friday night of the year and there were a few couples strolling and packs of teens out skulking. Jerry sped up as she reached the tail end of Main Street. The van hiccupped, and shot out a loud backfire from the rusted muffler. That drew nasty looks and hands firmly placed on the hips of a bleary eyed young couple pushing a stroller. They had just managed to get their brat to drift off and the cranky toddler started a fresh round of screams. Jerry honked and waved her favorite finger, drawing an even bigger wail from the kid.

  She cracked her second smile of the day and added more speed as the houses spread out and the street lights of town were quickly replaced by trees and darkness.

  Jerry loved, and yet was horribly afraid of, the dark. Even though she had to sleep with the hallway light on she still felt at home shooting through the thick black woods of the South Shore at night. There were long, undeveloped stretches of dark forest spaces interwoven among the small towns and sleepy communities. The farms and protected wetlands were clogged with tall trees and choked with impassable tangles of bushes. They produced a wall of black that created dark tunnels, sometimes touching over the road and completely blocking out the moonlight.

  A few miles south of town Jerry turned the van off the dark road onto an even blacker long gravel driveway. As she brought the van to a skidding stop in the turnaround behind her house she saw Doug’s truck wasn’t there, and the house was totally dark inside and out. Even though he could be a real prick, and a massive tight-wad about the power, he usually left at least the back light on if she was coming home really late.

  She had not called him from the road. As pissed as she was about Doug storing the barrels in the kennel and the van’s air conditioning not working, she tried not to piss him off unless she had him cold.

  If he was out there legitimately working on their plans then she didn’t need to set him off. She still had a sore finger from the last time she wagged it in his face at the wrong time. However, if he was out gallivanting with his asshole contractor buddies, or worse that fat chink bastard Liko, well then she’d tear him a new one. Jerry put up with a lot of crap but she was nobody’s door mat, and that Liko was bad news walking. He’d fuck anything that breathed and was into some freaky shit. Regardless, the simple fact was that some men just need a good bitching out once in a while to keep them from waning in their appreciations, just like some women need a smack now and again to keep their bitchin’ in check.

  Jerry stabbed the dome light on and hunted around for her phone and the small bottle of Tylenol. The phone was on the seat but no luck with her magic pills. She was learning that being in business with a doctor was good for a lot of things. Tylenol with Codeine was like heaven when you had a migraine, or cramps, or a hangover, or a newly bent finger. Or all four, as they tended to travel together.

  The front seat of the van was a mess of food wrappers and clothes but nothing that would effectively hide the small pill bottle. Her searching became more frantic as she had more than just Tylenol in that bottle. If she lost that little baggie Doug would really have something to crank a finger over.

  She took a breath and dug more carefully. The backpack only had three pockets for fuck sake.

  “Fuuuuuck fucker fuckstick fuckbait fuckwhore!” she screamed as three of her fingers found a large hole in the front pocket of the knapsack. She tore the van apart, flinging fast food wrappers and tearing a sweater that got caught under the seat. All the while Jerry was maniacally chanting, “Fuck fuckety fuck,” in time with Shania crooning on the radio.

  She searched for ten minutes, which consisted of five minutes of flinging things out of the van and the backpack and five more minutes of stomping in the dark around the van. After swearing and kicking at the gravel in time with Clint Black, Jerry realized the money and the bottle must have fallen out at the gas station. She fumed at the thought of that pud-pulling minivan dad and his butt picking horde being six hundred and change richer. They had also just inherited some of the best pharma grade shit you can get. She thought, Karma is going to bite you someday you dickless fuckery fuck.

  Even though she could have used the help with the van and the dogs, Jerry Dorschstein decided not to call her husband.

  Let him have his fun, or whatever, and prolong telling him about the money and the drugs. She debated trying to hide the loss from him completely but Douglas Dorschstein was a control freak and knew every penny and every ounce of every substance he gave to Jerry. She had learned the hard way to not keep secrets from him. Well, most secrets. She would find out where he was soon enough and maybe she could pull off a stalemate.

  Jerry slowly inched the van down the sloping dirt road that ran from the house to the kennels. With no moon and an overcast sky it was pitch black outside the reach of the van’s headlights. Doug or Aaron usually did the driving for this part as it could be tricky even in daylight. Time and again Jerry had proven that she wasn’t the most precise driver. She did fine at the long haul, when she wasn’t in traffic, but in tight spaces and on this pot-holed fucking rollercoaster she had been known to slightly misjudge distances.

  Their stretch van was just under twenty feet from nose to tail, and had balding tires and the boys drove it down the dirt road like a jeep but Jerry cursed at every bump and was sure she was heading for the ditch with each groan and snap of the suspension. The narrow road was elevated above the scrub on either side and it felt like she was driving on the edge the entire time.

  The kennel sat in the center of their large property, and from the turn-around in the back yard to the kennel gate was just over a half mile. The dirt road takes two sharp turns on the way. At the first one Jerry was sure she was far to the right but leaning out the window she saw she was inches from the left ditch.

  “Fuckitty fuckapples,” Jerry said as she turned off the radio and concentrated.

  She hunched over the steering wheel and picked her way around next turn. As she tried to avoid the bigger craters and crept towards the kennels she cursed her peckerless, absent husband.

  Chapter 8

  The Alpha walked silently to the downwind knoll and joined his hunting party. One Ear was taking lead per usual and she was crouched perfectly still and utterly concealed behind a small scrub bush a few yards ahead of Weasel Two.

  Weasel One silently head butted Alpha and nipped at his neck fur, giving him a hip bump as he passed. His hunters were excited. There was no mistaking the smell of small captive dog prey that pervaded this place, but Alpha had not thrived for this long by tangling with that other smell.

  This place was owned by humans. Their non-natural smells and loud noises filled the place.

  Alpha had always been confused by humans. They moved slowly, they didn’t hunt, they didn’t communicate in any way that made sense, and they surrounded themselves with strange and masking smells.

  Aside from the rare bear or wild cat the humans were the only other apex predators in their woods. Alpha had learned the hard way to avoid them as much as possible, but the amount of meat they kept inside this fence was too big a prize to ignore.

  Alpha wasn’t in a rush. He was patient, and his hunters would wait all night if he told them to. He was also ready to abandon the hunt quickly if his finely tuned senses got tweaked by anything he didn’t like. He would allow the pack to go hungry if needed, but his hunting party was good and there were other options for tonight.

  He decided to wait a bit longer, keep his team ready, and see what becomes of this. They didn’t need much of an opening. These hunters were the most productive he’d ever trained. Their youth and exuberance was a mixed blessing and sometimes resulted in an error or a lack of judgement, but they could always be counted on to immediately act on his commands. Alpha never worried about insubordination, his team had scars to remind them how important it was to follow orders.


  Although he was careful to show it sparingly, Alpha was proud of his killers. Especially One Ear. She’d become his top hunter and was almost ready to take on a larger role in the pack. Maybe later that summer, after the den’s whelps were reared.

  The scarred young Weasel Twins were another matter. They were not as well-rounded as One Ear and they could be impetuous, but they were much smarter than the rest of the pack realized. They had great instincts on a hunt and were extremely strong for their compact size. They had also logged more time hunting then any of the arrogant senior pack members who were too quick to dismiss them.

  The hunters snapped to attention as the human walked around the smoking box filled with the young game. They had stalked this ground many times and waited for hours in this place. They were all hypnotized by the sounds and smells of the prey, but Alpha had always kept them from entering the inner fence area. Risk and reward. Hunger and meat. Even Alpha had to fight the urge to just dart in there and start killing.

  There were a lot of young prey in the box. They had been yapping but had fallen silent. One of them may have gotten a whiff of Weasel Two who had moved too close. He had not followed Alpha’s exact instructions, which would earn him a stern nip.

  Something tweaked Alpha’s nose. This place had always been heavy with human’s strange smells but a very bad scent was also present. It was new, and it was as unnatural as most of their other smells, but this one was far worse somehow.