Pietrovich Schulmberg sat against a small boulder, sipping from a small canteen of water, wiping beads of sweat from his brow. Ah, yes, he thought to himself, there is nothing like brisk ten-mile run before sun up to make man feel alive and get blood flowing. He had just run ten miles south east of town to the very spot he now sat, a small boulder that marked the ten-mile spot from town. He sat drinking water, resting just before heading back to town. He ran this same course everyday, rain or shine, as a way of keeping fit---after all, as one of the town's newest doctors, he couldn't set much of an example sporting a flabby body, could he?

     He tried to get his lovely wife to go running with him, but, as usual, she rolled her eyes and went back to sleep. "Pete, honey, sweetie," she said in a voice strained from sleep, and barely checked anger, "I WOULD run with you if you didn't insist on doing it every day at four-thirty in the morning! I mean, even the roosters don't get up that early."

     "Steph," he had replied, "when you live in desert, you have to run before sun comes up, or you get, how you say, deep fried like chicken. Besides, four thirty isn't very early. Why, back when I was young child in Georgia---" at which point his loving patient wife would usually snap and do either: A] hit him with the pillow, knocking him down; B] tell him to get out and go running before she killed him; C] scream loudly, hit him with the pillow, and tell him to get out and start running. Most often it was C.

     As he stood up and prepared to run back to town, shower, shave, and eat a good breakfast before heading to the hospital to work, he heard a small, weak plaintive sound, like a voice calling for help. Peter shook his head and listened again...nothing. Had he imagined it? What would anyone(except him) be doing out in the middle of the desert in the dark at this time of the night/day? Then, he heard it again, weaker, and softer...it was definitely a cry for help. Peter was sure of it this time. Now...what to do about it.

     Peter thought quickly. The ideal thing to do would be to call the sheriff on his cellular phone, or run back to town and get one of the sentries to help him search. But, that would take time---time for them to arrive and time to find the man in peril. Somehow, Peter knew that time was one thing the man had in short supply. Therefore, *HE* would have to find him first, give whatever aid he could, and then summon help. With a sigh, Peter removed his backpack, his shoes, his shirt, and his running shorts. Standing naked in the cool pre-dawn desert, he willed the change to occur.

     With a slight warm tingling, the change began, spreading outward to all his extremities, spreading to his fingers and toes, feeling them shorten into paws. Hair began to sprout all over, his bones and muscles began to warp and reshape, and his face began to elongate into a long tapering muzzle. Peter sank to his hands and knees, not wanting to fall over as his legs changed into canine form. As his body completed the shift, he thought back to his first shift, little over three years ago, when he had come to Barken on vacation. He was still secretly proud that it had only taken him four days before the ability to change had become part of him---one of the fastest in town history. But, of course, he had always been a dog in spirit, and the...whatever it was in this quaint little town, merely brought it to the surface. Three years ago Peter mused...it seems like an eternity. Before Sasha's death. Before he and Stephanie. Before he had found meaning in his life...the slight breeze in his face brought Peter back to the present, and after a moment of the normal disorientation, he stood tall on four furry legs, a large grey-black Siberian Husky.

     Ears alert for any more cries, Peter tilted his head upwards, sniffing the air for any human scents, trying to catch a lead on where the person might be. An excellent tracking breed, he caught the scent north-west in a few minutes. North west...back towards town, he thought as he took off for the source, taking the pack with his supplies--and clothes--in his teeth. About eight or so miles out, he came upon the man, lying next to a large rocking overhanging of a high plateau. His right leg appeared to be crushed underneath a large roundish boulder, and a thick, dried pool of blood covered the ground next to him. For a fleeting moment, Peter thought the man was already dead, but then the man groaned, and mumbled incoherently in pain. Dropping the pack, Pete walked up to the man, willing the change back to human form as he surveyed the scene.

     There was a smashed telescope and a pair of binoculars beside the man, as well as what appeared to be a journal. Looking up, he spotted a lounge chair atop the plateau and a small shuttered lantern gave off a weak glow. Looking at the man's grimacing, sweat-soaked face, he was sure he had seen him before somewhere---but it was definitely NOT in town. All these things pointed to one central idea in Peter's mind, one he dared not voice, dared not consider if he were to help this poor man as a doctor.

     Human once more, Peter reached inside his pack, retrieving the cellular phone---and his running shorts, to preserve a little modesty should the man regain consciousness. Peter quickly dialled his home, telling his wife what had happened and to get the hospital ready. He then called Sheriff Pierre Davis and told him the same thing, advising him of WHERE he was and what the trauma team in the ambulance should bring. Dropping the phone, Peter at last turned to his patient and got to work.

     "The poor man is dehydrated from being here this long, as well as from a serious lack of blood," he said aloud. "I should let him drink from my canteen but going in and out of consciousness like that, he'll more than likely choke. First priority is to take care of that leg." Ripping his t-shirt into several long strips, he carefully wrapped them around he upper thigh of the injured man, forming a tourniquet. Putting the emptied pack underneath the man's head as a pillow, he took out a small cotton blanket to cover him, in case shock began to set in during the treatment. Walking beside the large boulder, Peter turned to the man. "This will hurt you like hell's fire, my friend," he said grimly, "but I have to get your leg out from under there to see if it can be saved. Just try not to die on me, okay? You survived so far---try and hang in there little longer."

     With that said, Peter hunched his shoulders, bent his knees, and heaved for all he was worth. Peter, a large, muscular man, capable of easily pressing over six hundred pounds, could barely budge the large rock. It must have been at least a thousand pounds. Muscles straining, sweat pouring off in drops, completely out of breath, Peter at last collapsed beside the boulder, resting as he tried to think of some other way to move the stone.

     "I need a lever or something," he thought breathlessly. "But out here in desert, there is only cactus, tumbleweed, and rocks...nothing to make lever out of. So what do I do?" He considered waiting for the rescue squad, but the man was fading fast, and minutes and seconds were precious. Having lost too much blood, Peter didn't think the man would last much longer. He had to get that boulder off and treat the man's leg or else amputate it, which he would only do as a last resort. At last, Peter had an idea. "If I can't PULL it off maybe I can get behind and PUSH it off."

     Moving to the side of the overhanging plateau, Peter slipped between the boulder and the wall. Placing his feet against the boulder, bracing his back, he pushed with all his might. It was hard---felt as if he was trying to push the entire earth itself. After several minutes, which seemed like an eternity to him, the boulder shuddered slightly. Noticing the slight movement, Peter redoubled his efforts, straining so hard he felt as if his heart would burst out from his chest. Slowly, surely, the boulder began to stir, then turn, then tremble, then finally, with one last heave, it rolled away, dropping Peter painfully to the ground as it rolled several feet before coming again to a stop.

     Wearily, Peter went to the man's bloody leg. The sharp edge of the boulder had sliced through muscles, veins, and tendons, and the bone itself was cracked in three places. Thanks to the tourniquet he had applied beforehand, the bleeding that seeped from the exposed blood vessels was suppressed. Peter carefully cleaned the gaping wound with the purified water from his canteen, then ripped a few more strips from his shirt, soaked them in peroxide, and gingerly wrapped them around the man's leg. The man groaned weakly, his eyes starting to roll back into his head. His body began to shiver and shake.

     "Dammit, he's going into shock!" Peter mumbled, moving over to the man's side. Despite the heavy blanket around him, the man was shivering. Lying atop the ground he was rapidly losing body heat even through the covers. Wrapping him in an even tighter ball, adding the last blanket from the pack, Peter gave the man a whiff of smelling salts to try and bring him around. At the same time he pulled out a small plastic hose attached to needles on both ends and a small valve in the middle. He also retrieved a small cotton ball and the alcohol. "Lucky for you, friend, I'm O+, the universal donor," Peter grumbled, inserting the hose into his arm and the man's as well. It was kind of ironic, that a doctor skilled in surgery, that had sliced and diced many patients in the past STILL felt squeamish about injecting himself for blood. "You had better live long enough to appreciate this."

     After about five minutes, the man, having received the transfusion, began to become lucid and aware of his surroundings, though he was still weak and disoriented. "Wha...what? Where...am I?" the man asked weakly.

     "Dr. Peter Schulmberg, at your service," Pete responded. "Don't try and move, just lie back and rest. The sheriff and the rescue squad are on the way. You will be fine. Tell me, though...what happened to you, and how did you come to be out here in the middle of the desert at this time of the day?"

     "I'm from Cherry, a small town about forty or so miles to the north," he mumbled weakly. Obviously, he was STILL pretty out of it, or else he would have been more tight-lipped in his answers, seeing a man dressed only in a pair of running shorts, especially since the nearest town that he could have possibly come from was Barken. However, oblivious, the man continued. "A few miles south of here is a town called Barken, a town filled with a bunch of... of...devils!! I don't mean to scare you none, doc, but its true. They're all a bunch of evil demons, what turn into hellhounds to roam the night in search of victims. We had dealings with some of them in the past, but the new mayor thinks we should just leave them be, not concern ourselves. Like no one could be concerned having the devil's minions in our backyard!" He slumped slightly as fatigue overtook his 'righteous' zeal. "Me and a few others decided for the good of the town, we'd better keep an eye on them from time to time. Tonight, I was watching them from up on that mesa, keeping a journal of their goings and comings. They have guards around their town, so we have to spy on them from far away with telescopes...anyway, I dropped my binoculars over the edge onto a branch, and when I bent over to get them I fell.. and that damn rock landed on my leg. Doc...if you hadn't come along when ya did I'd be a goner."

     Peter smiled stiffly. I wonder how he'd feel if he knew that it was one of those "devils" that he was spying on that saved his life, that the very blood that was keeping him alive had come from one of those "demons" he hated so much. Yes, life is funny sometimes...how ironic.

     "Just sit here and rest, friend. The rescue squad will be here in a few minutes, and once we get you all patched up, you will be on your way back home." As he spoke, he saw the all-too-familiar blue and red strobes over the edge of the horizon, and heard the telltale sound of a siren in the distance. Peter took a drink of water from his canteen and passed it to the man, who drank greedily. Fatigued, exhausted, and in pain, the man smiled closing his eyes and nodding back to sleep, as he asked one last question:

     "By the way, doc, what happened to the rest of your clothes?"

     Peter laughed softly as the man passed out. The man was obviously still too dazed to realize what was going on around him, Pete's lack of clothes, a big warning flag to most spies from Cherry, or where the rescue squad could have come from in order to get here so fast. Maybe he wouldn't remember the whole experience at all, just one big blur. And possibly if he DID, he would just as well TRY and forget it, pretend that it never happened rather than face the beliefs-shattering truths that he had shown him about Barken folks. But, maybe, just maybe, when all this was over and done with, the man from Cherry might have a slightly different outlook on life, and perhaps be a bit more tolerant...and wiser.

		Barken Index