Dr. Edward Karpan and Ted Obermeyer sat at a circular table in the middle of Barken, right outside a restaurant. They had already finished their lunch, and were at the moment sharing drinks It was a professional friendship, but also on a more rudimentary level. Both of them knew something was going on here in Barken that neither of them liked. Obermeyer felt he was pretty sure what it was about, but Karpan refrained from voicing his opinions, making the whole situation of rather mute cognition.

     Too alleviate their suspicions, Karpan endlessly droned on about the project, of the results so far obtained, and the objectives, all of which Obermeyer was well informed of. Karpan's droning quickly bored him, and he casually glanced off to one side, and he got a good view of a back alley. Before his very eyes he saw the strangest thing he ever did see. AS he watched, this old man kneeled down, and then became a dog. Quite unceremoniously in fact, but the very sight of it made Obermeyer reach for his drink, and empty it. Looking back at the glass, he rubbed his finger along the inside, and tasted what was left.

     "That good, huh?" Edward asked.

     "Yeah," Ted replied, craning his neck to look back down the alley, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary this time.

     Obermeyer promptly ordered another drink.

    Running through the sand, his pads crunching the dirt underneath him, he was deliriously happy. He couldn't believe this was happening to him, never had he even expected it, it was simply so glorious. He felt the wind rushing through his fur, the fragrance of the desert filling his nostrils, the beating of his heart, and the rushing of his blood through his veins filled his ears. His mind could think of nothing more exhilarating than this, to dance upon the world as he was now, to move with a speed unfelt before, and to know that he was indeed alive! He could die happy now just feeling this fullness, this fullness of life.

    Looking out the window, he felt quite frustrated. Letting the shade fall back in place, he settled on the bed, sitting there, thinking this whole thing was quite ridiculous. The door opened and he saw the proprietor, Mrs. Brumfield set a tray of food down for him to eat on the other bed. He grabbed her arm and stared into her eyes. "Are you sure this is going to work?"

     "Oh, yes. You'll never know otherwise," Rhonda told him, giving him that sweet old lady smile that disarmed so many.

     He let go of her, and leaned back on the bed, resigning himself to his wait. Why was he doing this, it made no sense whatsoever. Yet here he was, when he had work he had to be doing, waiting in a hotel room for he didn't know what.

    Goodness! A shifting target, why this ought to be quite fun!

    Obermeyer returned to the mobile laboratory by himself. Karpan was convinced that Obermeyer was crazy, after Obermeyer told him his suspicions. He really shouldn't have started talking about Indian Burial Grounds and such, and it really didn't help when he pulled out that map and tried to show him that Red Grove Hill meant Red Grave Hill, and everybody knew that Red was slang for Indian. At any rate, Karpan had told him to take a rest, get this stuff off his mind, as they were here for professional reasons, and the last thing Obermeyer could ever hope to be was a professional investigator.

     Of course that's just who Obermeyer called when he did arrive at the mobile laboratory.

     "This is Bryant," a voice on the other end replied.

     "Ho, Will! How've you been, it's me, Ted." "Oh, hi Ted, how're things going for you?"

     "I'm in the middle of the Twilight Zone at the moment," Obermeyer told him frankly.

     "What have you done to yourself now, Ted?" Bryant called back, as if this wasn't a surprise.

     "Well, I was hoping you would be available to come down here and figure out what's going on in this town."

     "Look I work for the FBI, I can't simply up and leave whenever I feel like it," Bryant told him.

     "Take some vacation time then, come down here, and figure this mystery out for me," Obermeyer insisted.

     Bryant sighed, "What's going on as far as you can tell?"

     "I saw an old man turn into a dog."

     "What were you drinking?" Bryant asked him again, a bit mischievously.

     "Fruit punch, nothing alcoholic if that's what you're insinuating." Ted became quite cross.

     "Alright, look, if you think you saw a guy turn into a dog, you probably did." Bryant couldn't believe he was saying this, but then again he had heard people claim stranger things, and Obermeyer was a good friend, he had to help him out. "I'll come down, but you owe me for this one."

     "No problem," Ted agreed.

     "Where is this place?" Bryant pulled out a pad and a pencil.

     "I'm part of a scientific research team. We're down here in Barken, TX. Don't dress for cold weather."

     "That's.. Barken, TX, right?"

     "Yup."

     Just as Obermeyer spoke, he heard the door to the laboratory open and shut. Turning to look he saw a very stressed out Dr. Nelson, who looked scared to death. Nelson turned to see him on the phone, and shouted, "Call the police, somebody's trying to kill me!"

     "What?!" both Bryant and Obermeyer asked at the same time, Nelson's voice carrying over the phone lines.

     Just then a shot rang through the building, and they noticed watched as somebody began to shoot up the side of the laboratory that they were in. Several beakers had shattered, and holes were now being blown in the walls. Both dropped to the ground, with Obermeyer shouting into the phone, "Will, get your ass out here now! Somebody's trying to kill us!"

    Jason had gone for a walk shortly after he finished talking with Rehberger. He hadn't seen the others, but he had heard some strange booming sounds. He thought they might be thunder, but looking up at the only partly cloudy sky, he decided that it couldn't possibly be thunder, but he had no idea what it could be. It had been a rather dull day for him. The events of these last few days wouldn't leave him, and despite his calm demeanour, inside he was raging.

     He didn't know how else to call it, but he could feel nothing but rage at himself for bringing the scientists here. Somehow he felt he was responsible for Curtis's death, even though he knew it wasn't true. Bringing the scientists here had not caused his death, a Cherry resident had. He uttered several curses to them in his head, thinking about how much hate destroyed people. He had seen it nearly destroy Greg three years ago, and that was more than enough evidence to him that he needed to ensure that he never felt such hatred, towards anybody, no matter what their beliefs were, no matter what oddities they could perform (after all he could turn into a Husky).

     His philosophical rambling's and maundering's were interrupted when he picked up a faint hum, almost like the sound of a siren. Looking in the direction it was coming from he saw what looked like a truck with flashing lights atop it approaching, it image waving behind the streams of heat rising from the sand. Before he realized it, the truck was passing in front of him, and he could see that it was a police truck, and it looked like Sheriff Davis himself was driving. The siren was on most definitely, and it was squealing with all its might. Jason wondered whether that high pitch a noise wouldn't hurt many of the resident's ears, at least when they were dogs, when it occurred to him that it was a low pitch for a dog. He smiled to himself for a second, then it also dawned on his where it was headed, towards the laboratory. Jason ran at breakneck speed, trying to get there to see what was going on.

    Sheriff Pierre Davis reached the scene in his truck as quick as he could. He'd almost run down Jason as he did so, the fool boy not having enough sense to stand out of the way. He'd gotten the call, and the gunshots he'd heard in the background had been enough to convince him that the situation was definitely out of hand. Arriving, he saw that the trailer had several new airholes, and that there was a man ranting outside, carrying a rifle. He kept aiming it at the place, and shooting occasionally. He didn't seem to notice Davis drive up, which suited Davis just fine.

     As Davis stepped out of the car, his own gun in hand, he noticed that it was none other than Albert Barclay. Why would he be out here? Why would he be trying to kill the scientists? As Davis approached carefully, Al did notice him, and shouted towards him, "Sheriff! These bastards killed my son! I'm going to nail them against my wall!"

     Davis approached him, saw that Al was not so far gone as to attack anybody who he saw, and then haymakered him. Al fell to his feet, the rifle flung from his arms. He reached over for it, but Davis was faster, kicking it underneath the trailer. "Don't move, Barclay!", Davis shouted at him, the gun now trained between Al's eyes. "I don't want to shoot you but I will if you make me."

     Al stared at the gun pointed at him, felt the bruise swelling on his cheek, looked back over at the trailer, and then he began to cry, "Curtis! Oh God I miss you my boy!"

     Davis kept his pistol pointed at him while he called out, "Anybody still alive in there?"

     The door opened and the near frenzied faces of Dr. Nelson and Obermeyer peered out to see Davis wave to them. "It's safe to come out now."

     The two scientists came around the corner, and saw the weeping Barclay. Nelson just shook his head, a look of understanding crossed his face. Obermeyer was still white from the scare, but his heart was now beating at a decent pace. Davis could smell the sweat drip off both of them in globs.

     Nelson looked up to Davis. "His son got shot, and he blamed it on us!"

     "I know. It's not your fault, some damn Cherry bastard killed his son," Davis told them frankly.

     Nelson and Obermeyer exchanged glances, and then Nelson continued, "Same thing happened to me ten years ago. My wife and daughter were raped and then murdered, all the while I was sitting at a bar drinking with some friends. Many a night I went out to search for that killer, even after I attended his execution, the real killer was still out there."

     "I'm sorry to hear that," Davis told him. "Do you know who the real killer was?"

     "Yes, and he is dead. I killed him myself. Of course he was myself." Nelson admitted. "If I had been home that night, I would still be married. I have never touched alcohol since then, and I have never left my homestead unprotected. I can't let anything like that happen ever again."

     "I'm glad to see you deal with your loss very well," Davis said, pulling a pair of handcuffs out. "If you wouldn't mind putting these on Mr. Barclay would you?"

     "No problem." Nelson reached around, and forced Barclay into the cuffs. Barclay resisted, but his strength was no match for the burly scientist.

     Davis opened the back door to his truck, it was one of those new four door models, and Davis had a screen mesh positioned between the front and the back, like a regular police car would. Nelson shoved Barclay in the back, and Davis shut the door behind him. Davis looked to the two scientists, "I'm sorry about all this, I hope your experiments were not damaged in any way?"

     "Well, unless you ran over one of our collection sites, I doubt you could have," Obermeyer told him plainly.

     Davis nodded, and then climbed into the front seat. "You guys keep up the good work, I'll take care of Mr. Barclay." With that, Davis gunned the engine, and turned the vehicle around, driving away.

    Jason had found that despite the fact he seemed to have limitless energy as a Husky, when he was a man, he tired quickly. He had stopped running after the car only minutes after he started, and as he breathed heavily, he briefly considered turning into a dog so as to get there easier, but his common sense told him the scientists probably wouldn't react to well to that, and so he trashed that idea. He could see that something was going on down there, but whatever it was, he was too late, for the truck started again, and drove right near him again. Jason saw that there was a figure in the back seat, but he couldn't tell who it was through the wire mesh.

     Jason reached the trailer a few minutes later, and the first thing he noticed was the gaping holes in the side of the trailer. It all then clicked for him, those large booming noises he had heard had been gun shots, and they had been directed at the mobile laboratory. Stepping inside he saw that Nelson and Obermeyer were in there, already trying to clean up the mess that had occurred.

     "What happened?" Jason asked, glad to see that nobody was hurt.

     "Some guy came around claiming we killed his son," Obermeyer told him. "His name was Albert Barclay. Do you know him?"

     Jason buckled form the shock, and Nelson barely grabbed him in time to keep him from falling over. Jason could feel welling in him the Barclay's sorrow, and along with it a stirring in his pants, which he had to fight back with every ounce of his being for a moment. When he recovered he looked up at them and said, "I was at his funeral."

     "I haven't seen any graveyards around here," Nelson mentioned.

     "They're unmarked," Obermeyer told him quite candidly.

     Jason ignored their comments, and continued, "One of my best friends is married to their daughter. I thought somebody from Cherry had killed him, it doesn't make sense. Have either of you killed anything recently?"

     "Not that I can think of. I may have run over a scorpion and snake or two," Nelson offered meekly. Obermeyer just shook his head.

     Jason sighed. Suppose it was one of the scientists? Who could it possibly be? Why would any of them feel the need to kill an innocent little dog? Then again, not a single one of them had a gun, it really didn't seem possible for them to kill a dog with a gun they didn't have. Barclay must have made a mistake, a very grievous mistake at that. Jason then resolved himself to help clean up the mess that Al had caused.