The look of dumbfounded amazement on the sisters' faces almost made Eddie break

out in laughter of his own. (tell shes) urgently. "Huh?" "Oh yeah" and he bega
n a brief synopsis of what had appeared to him, or with him as the case may be.
He could tell that they were all waiting for the big "show-stopper" and contrari
ly he put off the best for last. "It seems," he continued "That somewhere aroun
d two-hundred thousand years ago our planet was visited by beings from another p
lanet." He drew out a long pause and looked at each woman in turn. They were a
ll staring at him, not uttering a word, breathlessly waiting for what he had to
say.
"Come to find out, they look just like we do now, as a matter of fact, any of yo
u girls would have fit right in with them, no questions asked." This brought a
babble of comments which Eddie was glad to hear, it meant they were still breath
ing, at least.
"Of course, we didn't look like us back then, we were smaller with proportionate
ly smaller brain pans and even though we had built civilization after civilizati
on, we couldn't keep from warring on each other and ultimately destroying every
complex society we achieved. "
"At the time the Others arrived we were just creeping slowly back up the social
ladder and were starting to farm again and make pottery." "The Others, for lack
of a better term, recognized in our earliest ancestors a racial similarity and
decided to step in with a little evolutionary help to pull us out of the never-e
nding loop or cycle of civilization to savagery that we were in."
He paused again, and took a pull off his mug of tea sitting at his elbow. "At le
ast that is what they wanted us to believe," and then softly he added, "I don't
think that was really their reason for altering us genetically, from what I coul
d gather, now this is just what I think, it might be wrong,,, you know,," and he
trailed off, looking questioningly at Kammi the alpha bitch.
Not receiving any encouragement, or discouragement, he started again, "I think t
hey need allies in a war or something."(?) It seemed to Eddie that Kammi and th
e other dogs were waiting for him to come to his own conclusions about his exper
ience, he could sense their expectancy too.
"But what about the dogs?" This was Aggie, with her arm around Kammi. " What do
they have to do with all this?" "Well," he began, "they were not engineered ri
ght along with us." " However, they are our hunting companions, and they are ou
r protectors from that which we do not have the senses to understand." "They ca
n see and smell stuff we can't, mostly smell, it's something to do with our enem
ies or something, I guess." (good)
(more)Now he started to tie the loose pieces together mentally, adding them up a
nd coming to an astounding conclusion. "They are our consciences, our fail-safe
in case we destroy our civilization." (more) it was almost pleading in tone.
"They are our guards, our wardens." Relief was tangible from Kammi(enough) "Bu
t,,," and then he added in a rush "They were here before the Others," they must
be,,,," a jolt of mental force almost blacked him out. Shaking his head, Eddie
was contrite, "Sorry, I still don't understand it all, I guess."
Now there was pandemonium in the room, everyone was trying to ask questions or a
rguing with one another. The dogs, the four of them, seemed to pick up on the e
xcitement and began playfully nipping at one another and wrestling around. In t
he hubbub, out of nowhere it seemed, came a new mental touch in Eddie's mind, an
d he felt it was not any of the dogs.
(Come to me by mid-day tomorrow, we have much to discuss.) Now it was Eddie's t
urn to drop his jaw in amazement. He knew immediately who it was who had just c
ontacted him, the tone though was commanding, brooking no argument, as if it wer
e stating a fact. "Wow." It was all he could say, that mental touch had carrie
d with it a certain alien-ness, a feeling of supreme strength beyond that of hum
anity. "Wow."
Slowly things calmed down and they were just preparing to find something for din
ner when another quake hit. "Ooohhh, shit." Andy began. Then they were all stum
bling around like puppets on strings as the shaking intensified, bringing shower
s of drywall dust down on them.
There were a couple of screams and someone shouting at him, but Eddie had no ide
a what was said, he had his arms full of 160 lbs of terrified Buddy. Just as th
e shaking and pitching of the room started to quiet down Buddy raised his head s
uddenly, cracking Eddies' jaws together with a sound like a shot.
"Ooww!" " Oh,uh,uh," Then came a fountain of blood from Eddies' bitten tongue,
which mixed messily with the drywall dust covering him. Finding a napkin from th
e remains of breakfast, he wiped his mouth off and clamped it between his teeth
. Blood was still leaking from one corner of his mouth as he surveyed the damag
e to the room.
The dogs and the woman had managed to get out of the room somehow, but he notice
d that the room was still in pretty sound shape except for the spiderweb of crac
ks in the ceiling and the only window whose slider had fallen out. As the dust
settled he found the slider and replaced it, still swabbing his swollen mouth an
d casting murderous glances at Buddy, who seemed unaware of anything wrong.
Hearing the sounds of voices in another room he ventured into the hallway in tim
e to see someone he didn't know being ushered into the living area. Wandering n
onchalantly down the hallway to where everyone was, he grabbed Buddy by the coll
ar as the big dog tried to pass. "Ah, Hah!" "Got you, you rat!" Of course Budd
y thought this was just more fun and games and dashed off, pulling loose from E
ddie's grasp and out through the open front door.
Reaching the living room with no sign of Buddy, Eddie waited to be introduced to
the stranger who was in a deep conversation with Andy and Arabelle. Aggie came
over and asked him how bad he was hurt, thinking that all that blood must mean
something major. He assured her it wasn't, but to keep an eye out for Buddy, wan
ting to even the score even if he needed a baseball bat to do it.
Their guest turned out to be a passerby who had been looking for directions to
town when the quake hit. This sounded pretty fishy to Eddie and Aggie agreed.
Apparently so did her sisters as Andy had a pistol stuck in the back of her jean
s while Arabelle was holding a fireplace poker. The visitor seemed oblivious to
this though and kept up a barrage of questions to the girls while he looked aro
und the room.
Eddie calmly walked over to the hallway closet and searching for a moment pulled
out his Ruger Blackhawk, checking the loads. The stranger didn't miss any of t
his and his eyes widened as Eddie walked up to him. "Okay friend," "Suppose yo
u tell us who you are and why you're here," with an audible click the BlackHawk
was ready for action.
"As I was telling these two ladies,,," he began. Eddie had seen the man's eyes s
hift towards the picture window and he threw himself to one side just in time as
a shot rang out accompanied by the crashing of glass. Before his knees hit the
carpet he pulled off a shot, striking the stranger just above the groin. With
the next round in the chamber he tracked around behind him towards the sounds of
 fighting and the snarling, low-throated growls of the dogs.
It was over as soon as it began, almost. The shot from Andy's 9mm had punched a
hole in the safety glass of the window and also into the chest of the man spraw
led across the jagged remnants of the window. Another man, screaming for all he
was worth was held by the two dogs, Jack and Ellie who were playing tug-of-war
with an arm in each of their mouths.
As he watched, with a sickening ripping sound the arm held by Jack was pulled f
rom it's socket, splattering blood across the deck. The screaming stopped.
Turning the full circle he saw Andy standing over the man he had shot in the gr
oin, trying to pull Buddy off of him. With the help of Arabelle they disengage
d Buddy just as Eddie stood up to help. (okay?) "Yeah, I'm okay, how about you?"
He could swear he saw a grin on the big dog's bloodied muzzle. (okay)
It turned out that there were only three of the raiders, the man that Buddy munc
hed on lived long enough to tell them of seeing the big steel gate get jammed by
the earthquake as they had been looking for a way in. "Looking for food and wa
ter" were the man's last words.
Eddie looked over all three of them as they were dumped in the septic tank behin
d the first house. "Sure don't look like they had missed many meals." He told A
ggie. "Yeah" she replied. "They were looking for something else, I'll bet." "An
y ideas?" "Not a clue," she said.