Dr. Harvey Shishido got up that morning, and as he always did when he was with his brother and her wife and kids, he collected the mail. It was a ritual he liked to perform, and on this misty San-Fransisco morning, he felt more alive than ever before. It was good to get away from Barken and meet with his family on occasion. He really did enjoy his nephew and niece's company, and they loved to see him. It helped all the more that his brother's family knew of Barken, and knew what he could do; he liked to be the dog for the little kids to play with, since they didn't have any pets of their own. It was always fun to play with the kids.

     This morning however, he noticed that amidst the mail, there was a thick package carrying several dollars worth of stamps, that had been sent here, but had been addressed to him. He thought this odd, but looking at the return address he saw that it was from Sheriff Davis from the police station. His handwriting too, not some simple police force stylized return address sticker that had been affixed. No this was the real McCoy.

     Setting the rest of the mail down on the dining room table, he moved to open the package. It was taped shut, and he could feel that there was something inside. He wondered what it might possibly be, Davis had never sent him anything the other times he had gone on vacation. Then again, it had been some time since he had gone on vacation, since he felt a duty to the town. Now that he had an assistant in the form of Dr. Olympia Sparks, a very capable woman who enjoyed her work, he felt freer to visit family.

     It was so nice to be with family, for they were truly what made a home. The furnishings and the carpets, and the drapes, and the nice kitchens, the two door garage, the master bedroom and bathroom with a full water jet jakuzi, they certainly made a house nice, but they didn't make it a home. The family did that, and it was at these times when surrounded by people who loved him, not because of what he did, not because of what he does or what he believes, but because they share the same blood and are people. That was what made a house a home, and it was times like this, when he was at his brother's home, that he could truly appreciate the married life, even though he could never have a family himself.

     Sighing contentedly, he reached for the scissors to cut through the tape to open the package. With each snip, he could smell the air rising from the packet, as if glad to have finally escaped its confinement. Then he reached inside, and pulled out the contents. He never knew what hit him.

     "Four murders in five days." Davis looked at his top sentries, each of them thinking different things, none of them liking any of their thoughts. "We have to do something else, he keeps getting in here, he keeps getting past or killing our sentries."

     "What can we do that we haven't already done?" Rick asked drawing attention to himself. "What are we missing here? There is something that we have left out."

     "George Thompson, Tom Cavanaugh, Patrick Monaghan, and now Tad Jude." Randy said, his face buried in his clenched fists.

     "Why does he have to kill them all?" Joe asked, obviously shaken up by everything.

     "Look, what has he done, he's killed them, eviscerated them, skinned them, and then left their bodies in exactly the same position, why? Why does he do it? Is there something we're missing here?" Taylor burst out loud, his temper on the edge.

     "Serial killer." Bill said, forming the words as if they were poisoned.

     "Do you think so?" Davis asked him, the idea seeming to him to be quite rational.

     "I think this is more than just the average Cherrier coming in here to kill a few dogs. Lets look at the evidence. He kills only one a night, and all of them have died around midnight. Secondly, though he kills them all in different ways, he leaves them positioned in exactly the same way. Hell, the angle of the bodies is facing the same direction, south-east, every time. He eviscerates them, and leaves their organs in exactly the same position. Also, the facility with which he has skinned them has been quite good; Olympia says only a taxidermist does a better job. I'd say this points to a serial killer. I can't think of any other explanation."

     "Don't forget," Rick added, "he only kills them when they're dogs."

     "In that case. Nobody on patrol is to be a dog tonight." Davis told them all. "Maybe he won't kill anybody if there aren't any dogs."

     "Wait a second." Randy held his finger up to them all. "If he only kills them as a dog, why don't we set it up so that there is only one victim he can have?"

     "Go on." Davis prompted him, all eyes now focusing on Randy, even Taylor's.

     "I say we lay a trap for him. Serial killers don't like to break their pattern, and if we force him to choose a target we've preselected, then he'll go for it. I say we set it up so that nobody in town is a dog except the bait, and we lie in wait for him to come and snatch it." Randy explained, smiling for the first time since the entire series of deaths had begun.

     "Who's to be the bait?" Davis asked.

     "I am." a voice came from behind them, and each turned to see Olympia Sparks standing in the doorway, a folder in her hand. I want to get back at this monster for what he's done. I'll do it."

     "Are you sure?" Bill asked her, his compassion for her overriding his usual steady tones.

     "Yes, besides, the veterinarian office is right near the police station, how can he object to taunting you again? Serial killers tend to think of themselves as artists, and many like to live close to the edge of capture, to show that they are smarter than everybody else. They have some sort of master plan they follow, and I'm sure I'll fit right in." Olympia reasoned.

     "But all the people he's killed so far have been men." Rick pointed out. "You're obviously a woman, he might object to that."

     "I say the lady is set on doing this, so we let her." Taylor remarked in even tones. The lucidity with which Taylor spoke made Bill eye him warily. What was he trying to pull?

     "All right Mrs. Sparks, you're the bait." Davis told her, his voice firm and clear, and without any pangs of guilt about setting a woman up to possibly die. "Now we know he never kills until midnight, and we want you to be very obvious, probably sleeping out in front of the clinic as a dog. We'll lie in wait somewhere, we should figure out where as soon as possible. As soon as midnight approaches, we'll jump the first non-Barken resident that comes near you. It will almost certainly be the killer."

     "We should let everybody in town know that they have to remain indoors and human tonight." Bill reminded them.

     "Yes, though we should keep the regular number of sentries about, no sense in making him too welcome." Randy pointed out.

   "All right, but I want you five to be with me when we jump the killer." Davis told them. "Is that satisfactory to you Mrs. Sparks?"

     "It'll be satisfactory when I'm sure you can hide without being seen by the best of you." she replied forcefully. They could all tell that she was bent on doing this, and that it was not something that they should take for granted.

     "In that case, we should have Randy check to make sure if he can see us when were hidden. Only sight now, as he won't have the added advantage of a dog's scents." Davis then stood from his chair, and so did the others. "Now I want you all to go through town and deliver the message that everybody is to stay in doors and human tonight. Emphasize that their lives depend on it. Otherwise this little exercise could be all for naught. In one hour we shall meet back here, and then we shall stake out our hiding spots for later tonight. Are we all agreed?"

     Choruses of the affirmative echoed from each of their mouths. "Good, then lets get to it!"

     Will Bryant left the meeting feeling rather ebullient. The bust would be this afternoon, and boy would he make those drug dealers pay. He always enjoyed seeing the guilty behind bars, and he always so much enjoyed seeing justice prevail. The world was sick in many ways, and he liked to think that he was part of the cure. He had no sympathy for those who would seek wealth off of hurting others, and extorting from them money only so they could get a substance that slowly killed them. They bust was all set up, the deal had been arranged, and he was going to kick some ass.

     As he was walking back towards his office, he saw that his friend Fred Wilbeshire was in his office shuffling through some papers. Will leaned into his cubicle, and knocked on the side. "Hey Fred, whatcha' working on now?"

     "Oh this crazy case I got assigned." Fred sighed, laying the papers down on the desk as if he didn't want to have anything to do with them.

     "What is it?" Will picked up the cover sheet and glanced over it, lists of places all over North America, lists of names and aliases, and lists of stolen goods.

     "I'm calling it the Santa Claus case. Apparently this guys robs toys stores while dressed as Santa Claus."

     "That sounds like something for regional police departments, not for us." Will commented, a smirk developing on his face from the silliness of the case Fred was stuck with.

     "Yeah, well look at that list of places he's stolen from. We've got theft from Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Indiana, and Ohio. That's eight different states. That's why we've got the case."

     "How do they know it's the same guy?"

     "Well, he leaves his little calling card at the scene. Here's a picture of it." Fred handed him a photograph of a piece of paper with something written on it. He could only make out the words at the top, "All For You". Interesting, I wonder what it means."

     Fred the realizing that he was discussing the case with a colleague which was against protocol, suddenly snapped up the papers. "I just realized I'm not supposed to be showing you this stuff! I'll have to ask you to give me that back."

     "No problem." Will handed the photograph back. "I hope you find the thief. Of course, I don't know anything about your case."

     "That's good." Fred smiled, knowing that he could trust Will not to leak the information for any reason. Will then said his goodbyes, and departed. On a sudden impulse he decided not to head to his office, but to head to the Forensic labs. Arriving there in short order, he was greeted by his friend Thomas Tash.

     "Hello, Thomas." Will shook his hand. "You got anything for me today?"

     "Well Mr. Bryant, we ran your samples through the tests, and we got some results for you. There were four different types of hair and fibre we found. The first two were both rats, but we included it in the report because you said you wanted everything. The third is from a dog, we think it's a St. Bernanrd. The fourth is the only real fibre, and it's from a felt coat that looks like it has seen better days. The fibres were worn, and looked to be several decades old. There were also alcohol stains on them. We haven't identified the type of alcohol yet, but we're working on it."

     "Try Red Dog." Will suggested. He already knew that there was going to be hair from a St. Bernard, and that there had been Red Dog all over the samples. The package had filled him in on everything Davis had left out. What he was more concerned about was hopefully what Tash would tell him next.

     "Red Dog?"

     "Yeah, call it a hunch." Will smiled.

     "Well, we'll check that out. The other thing we found is blood, it looks to be dogs blood. It was all over the hairs and fibre. We think it was from the St. Bernard. There wasn't anything else in the sample. We didn't find any human hairs, or any other traces of humans, in the mess."

     Will furrowed his brow. What was going on in Barken. Somebody had killed three people Davis had said, and was likely to kill more. This was all from the first incident, there was likely more evidence that needed to be accumulated. He now wanted to go back to Barken, but he had an important case to finish up today. He would see if he could get some leave time to go to Barken as soon as it was finished, things were looking too bad for him not to.

     "Is there anything else Mr. Bryant?" Tash brought him back out of his reverie.

     "Oh yes, have the results delivered to my office would you. I'll be gone for the afternoon, so just slide them under my door."

     "Yes, sir."

     "I'll catch you later Thomas." Will turned form the lab and tried to put the thoughts of Barken out of his mind. He had some drug dealers to catch tonight.

     Jason walked along the field trying to keep his mind off of the most pressing issue, and the most desirous of scents. He had to find Nathan, this was simply not working quite the way he'd intended or hoped. He was treated like any other dog by the dogs in the house and outside. What irked him most was that their two male dogs were being kept outside for a reason. The females were in heat, and already they offered themselves to him four times.

     He was not really amazed that all three of them would be in heat at the same time. He'd heard that when women stay together in an isolated environment long enough, their periods will synchronize. However, three dogs in heat, and he had the capability to be a dog, a very male dog. He did not like the way his thoughts turned when he was near them. The scents they released were beyond the threshold of the normal human nose, but his nose was anything but normal. He had thought that his human mind would dismiss such scents, as he still found the scent of dog food absolutely retched as a human, despite the fact it was quite tasty as a dog. However, he had been wrong.

     The scents he had picked up from his first encounter had told him as much. He had felt desire for that dog, desire to make them whole, to fill the gap, to combine them, to connect the pieces of the puzzle. He wasn't sure exactly how to describe his feeling in words, simple allusions not being enough. He had a real desire, it wasn't love, but instead lust. He had restrained himself, forcing himself to stand tall, not letting himself succumb to the temptation. He most certainly did not want to lose his virginity with a dog!

     He had to get away form the scents because that last encounter had nearly been enough to push him over the edge. Staying out of the house did the trick. Also walking by the stables accomplished much the same goal. He could smell the equine scents, and he drank them in, glad they were what they were, and not the scents of a female dog in heat. Even the thought of it, the memories of its fragrance brought that lusty feeling in his heart. He needed to find Nathan and let him know what was wrong. He had to do something!

     Nathan was not too hard to find (he'd actually been mucking out the stables at the time), and he was more than happy to see Jason, though he could tell something was wrong by the look Jason had on his face.

     "Hey Jason, what's wrong?"

     "It's your dogs." Jason told him, feeling a bit embarrassed about telling him this, not sure how to broach the subject.

     "What about them? They not treating you nice?"

     "Well, they're treating me fine, they're still a bit wary, but they're not the problem, it's their condition." Jason wrung the last word out, making it clear that he had something he didn't really want to say about them.

     "What about them? Did one of them get hurt or something?" Nathan asked, a worried expression flashed across his face.

     "No, they're perfectly healthy, it's just that some of them are quite friendly." Jason hinted at it, speaking slowly and carefully, making sure to use the right words.

     "That's good then. It means they're acting normally. They usually take well to strangers." Nathan added, the looks of worry but a fleeting facade.

     "Yes, they are acting normally, but not in the way your thinking." Jason tried to hint to Nathan something he felt embarrassed even thinking about.

     "Jason what are you trying to say?" Nathan grew quite frustrated from Jason's beating around the bush.

     "Well why are you keeping the males outside?" Jason asked.

     "Because the females are in heat... Oh my goodness." A look of understanding spread across Nathan's face. It was quickly replaced by one of shock and horror. "You didn't did you?"

     "No! I have kept myself clean." Jason reassured him. "But I can't go in there, because I can smell it. I hate to admit it but it makes me lusty."

     "Maybe you shouldn't have come here." Nathan pointed out.

     "There's nowhere else I can go." Jason told him.

     "You could always arrange a visit with Greg down in Barken can't you? I mean you're already being given time off from your job, you have money now, good gosh, how much do you have in stocks?"

     "Quarter-million. LeMark stocks went through the roof over this last year. I've sold a good portion of it and put it into bonds and some interest earning IRAs. Anyhow, I guess I can go back to Barken. I'll have to call Greg and see if I can stay with him for a while." Jason replied. He couldn't believe himself how much money he had accumulated, and here he wasn't even twenty-five years old. The way he'd set it up, he could live off the interest alone in another twenty years. He was not the only one of them to make money of the venture. Obermeyer and Swett had bought a good share in the stocks, and Obermeyer was now a millionaire while Swett had as predicted won a Nobel Prize. Thinking on them, he wondered how they were doing, he hadn't seen them in a while. However, he had more immediate concerns to take care of.

     "I can't believe you're that stinkin' rich." Nathan shook his head in disbelief. "Oh well. You'll have to go inside to use the phone though."

     "I'm sorry to be leaving you all so soon, I really am." Jason apologized.

     "Don't worry about it." Nathan told him. "Besides, you're not leaving yet, you're standing in the horse manure like me."

     Jason looked down at his feet, and indeed he had soiled his shoes. He shook his head in dismay. He stepped out of the manure, and wiped his shoes off on the hay. "Well, I better call Greg and see if he's in. You want to say anything to him?"

     "Tell him I said hi." Nathan smiled. "Oh, and ask him when the baby's due. He wrote me a few weeks back, told me Mary was pregnant, didn't tell me when it was expected though."

     "Funny, I didn't get a letter." Jason mentioned.

     "Probably just got lost in the mail." Nathan reassured him. "Maybe you can ask them how she got pregnant too."

     "I don't even want to think about that, Nathan!" Jason told him quite reproachfully. "I'm worried right now that I don't get one of your dogs pregnant!"

     "Well, I'll see you for supper, I take it you won't be leaving until tomorrow, if you do leave."

     "Yeah, I'll stick around for at least one more night. Hopefully I'll be out of here by morning." Jason told him. He then, after a quick see you later, walked back towards the house. He felt as if he were walking into a torture chamber, being led by some unseen forces, led to his doom. He opened the front door, making sure that the two male dogs did not get inside. Once in he caught the scent full force. He felt his heart leap in joy, and his mind filled with lusty thoughts and images, and scents and sounds. He tried to retain control of his rational side.

     With a clouded consciousness, he walked forcefully over to the phone, and picked it up. Realizing that he didn't remember Greg's number off the top of his head, he began looking about for a phone book. There wasn't one by the phone, so where could they be. He figured he'd better check the address book. He knew that his parents had kept one, and he now kept one, so it seemed logical to assume that Nathan's parents kept one.

     He walked into their study, and searched through the items on the desk. In quick order he found the address book, and he thumbed through it to make sure Greg's address was there. Greg and Mary Beth Finley, you they were there. He picked up the book and was about to head back to the phone when that scent intensified. Looking in the doorway he saw one of the females, a sheep dog, with her tail held high, and her clitoris spreading so invitingly outwards. Jason felt a bit of himself enlarge with pride, and another part of him tense with shame.

     The dark figure stalked the shadows of the main chamber's outer walls. He stood underneath the parapets, looking out at the skins laid carefully upon the floor. Why was he doing this? Why was he pinning his hopes on this madman? Because he himself was mad? Or was it because that things for him had simply become so strange that reality simply didn't work the same way as before. Whatever the excuse, he was here now, as the sky grew dark, unable, nay afraid to go out on his familiar stalking grounds.

     His mad friend was growing too cocky in his killings, too artistic, and too damned sure of himself. He remembered a time when he was that way, a time he regretted with every fibre of his being. Now there was no turning back for either of them. The die was cast, and it would remain to be seen what would become of it. He looked to the centre of the room. The bottle of Chardonnay the man had bought on the first night stood there, unopened, and unharmed. Would they be drinking from that once this was over? He had never tasted wine before.

     He wondered idly what new skin he would bring in tonight. He also wondered just how long it would take him to get back here, past the sentries, and here without being seen once. He had learned well, amazingly well, and this frightened him. However, he reminded himself of the eventual result of their goals, the destruction of Barken. Once more it would be wiped off the face of the map, and this time for good.